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THE ILE1TTE1R© 



ozf 1 



Niall the Grand mid Others., 



OiT 





X 



Bulls of Adrian, Etc., Etc. 



°>°<33^S>x^c 



^cbicaicb to tftc eFe/nicm» a+vc tftc eFttc*t&> of eircfan^. 



"Semper et Ubique Fideles." — Always and Everywhere Faithful. 



SECOND EIDITIO^T—ISE^riSEiD, 



Of WASHlVi^. ' 



GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.: 

STEAM PRESSES OF H. H. COLESTOCK, 2 PEARL, STREET. 

1882. 



/UnU. 






~K 



- 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

BULL OF ADRIAN IV. . . . . . .78 

Authorities on the Bulls 70 

Introductory Remarks . . . . . . ' . 3 

Letters of Niall the Grand and^Others . . 8 to 28 

Artful Policy of the English' Government . . .28 
Maynooth College endowed by England . 31 

The Maynooth Oath 32 

The Destruction of Ireland's Parliament ... 34 
England's Attempt to enslave the Irish Church . . 3G 
Oath of the Emancipated Catholic Office-seeker . . 44 
Ireland's Bondage ........ 46 

The Church against Irish Freedom .... 48 

Catholic Emancipation ....... 49 

England's gratitude to the Church for helping- to en- 
slave Ireland . . . . . . . .52 

The Fenians in the Field ...... 58 

Persecutions of the National Color by priests . . 60 

Felon -setting 60 

Lifting the Cross for England ..... 61 

Who Broke down the British Church . . .63 
The English Clergy ....... 66 

Waning Influence of Irish Catholic clergy in Elections, 70 
The Election of John Mitchell 71 



INTRODUCTORY. REMARKS. 

Fellow-countrymen, as myself exiles and victims of cre- 
dulity and of the tyrannical policy of England and* her 
allies, and also you men interested in the welfare of your 
fellow-creatures of whatever descent or nationality, I beg 
leave to explain to you the motives that impelled me to 
commence those letters of " Niall, the Grand," lately pub- 
lished in the Daily Democrat* and how the ungentlemanly 
misconstruction of the spirit of these letters by " Irish" and 
" Irish-Americans " caused me, instead of treating them 
with neglect as they deserved, to retaliate in kind. 

In my experience, I have met and talked with Irishmen 
who could relate with accuracy the principal incidents of 
English, French, Spanish, German, Russian and even 
Roman, Grecian, Persian and Egyptian histories, and yet 
knew nothing of their own country's history, except what 
they had learned from the erroneous fireside legends of old 
women, such as the counterfeit prophecies of Columkill, 
the great feats of fairies and ghosts, and the battles and 
conversations St. Patrick had with the snakes. These same 
men can tell you the name and merits of every story that 
has appeared in the New York Weekly, the Fireside Com- 
panion, etc., during the last ten years. It is a desire to 
awaken the minds of such men to the importance of Irish 
history that induces me to introduce Niall. If they begin 
to read and study this Irish history, they will find it as 
instructive as any other, and more romantic and thrilling 
than the trash they find in dime novels and story papers". 
Despite all the pains which the Danes and their kindred, 
the Norman-English, took to destroy it, and the extent to 
which they succeeded, we can still learn from it that a peo- 
ple capable of leading the world in arts, science and learn- 
ing may, when opposed by cunning fraud, become almost 



4 REMARKS. 

the exact opposite of what nature has made them — that 
circumstances move the human mind as wind does the 
clouds, and that the more noble and intellectual is the 
mind, the more subject it is to bad as well as good 
influence. 

Countrymen, let us compare Ireland of 1,000 or 2,000 
years ago with our sad and forsaken Ireland of the present, 
and see if the comparison flatters us. Our fathers a thou- 
sand years ago led the world in intellectual advancement, 
gave tuition and the necessaries and comforts of life free of 
charge to all that wished to partake ot them; and our fath- 
ers of two thousand years ago possessed not only learning 
and civilization but also valor and freedom. They were 
not afraid to measure swords with the soldiers of doughty 
Rome. That power invaded and easily conquered Eng- 
land, the inhabitants of which the Irish, judging from their 
neutrality, must have thought little of; but when she 
attempted the subjugation ot the Scotch she was met and 
foiled by Irish valor, and met not alone in Scotland; but, for 
her presumption in tampering with the rights and liberty of 
true Celts, encountered and defeated on her own soil. We 
may also congratulate ourselves on the fact that our Chris- 
tian forefathers were about the only people then that prac- 
ticed Christianity to the letter. They discountenanced the 
maxim ot treating people according to desert; and alas! to 
the sorrow of their progeny put in rigid practice that of 
doing good for evil ; while their neighbors believed in and 
practiced that and every other Christian precept as far as it 
enabled them to gain their selfish ends by deceiving others. 
Of equal truth is the fact that our forefathers, a thousand 
years ago, educated and civilized, so far as that was pos- 
sible, the very men in the unjust possession of whose pos- 
terity Ireland is now and has been more or less for the last 
seven hundred years ; while one-half of the rightful heirs, 
driven to America, have to keep the other half at home 
from starving; all of which we may contemplate with such 
emotious as are congenial to our dispositions. 

" Irish" has, with other unfounded pet names, called me 



REMARKS. 



a renegade Irishman. If, to be a renegade, it is necessary 
for one to. have the welfare of his native country at heart 
next to that of his family and to give her all the assistance 
in his power, then I accept the term renegade; for Ireland 
is next to my family in my love and anxiety. 

Oh Erin! my country, though sad and forsaken, 

I long to revisit thy sea-beaten shore; 
But, alas! in a far foreign land I awaken, 

And sigh for the friends that can meet me no more. 
If he applies the word on religious grounds, I say to him, 
though by no means willing to play the hypocrite, I believe 
myself at least as good a Catholic as he. I have nothing 
to say against the religious portion of Catholicity. Jt is the 
creed of every one belonging to me— the creed I was taught 
at the knees of a loving motTter ; but with that part of it 
that has become a political machine, to the injury of my 
country and its votaries, and would barter their liberty and 
their lives, I hold no sympathy. When a man combines 
in his person the character of a politician with that of an 
expounder and inculcator of Christian precepts and Chris- 
tian virtues— that is, when he uses or rather prostitutes the 
influence, attached to his position as moral teacher, in gain- 
ing his own selfish object or in gratifying his vanity, to the 
detriment of those the faithful guardian of whose interests 
he pretends to be, I cannot conscientiously approve of his 
worldly inclination or confide in his interpretation of Chris- 
tian or moral obligations. 

It has been strongly urged and is now asserted that God 
wills to have Irishmen persecuted, stoned and exiled, so as 
to Carry the faith to other countries ! Brother Irishmen, is 
it your belief that God has created us for this purpose— as 
victims to be sacrificed to the will of a few dozen English- 
men, who use our God-given property in practicing vices 
for which no language has names, and so revolting that to 
hear them described causes one's hair to stand on end with 
horror! Oh! let us not commit such a blasphemy as be- 
lieving such a damnable theory. If it be so, what a noble 
end is ours ! And do we propagate the faith to any re- 
markable extent ? Yes; the faith that Ireland has been 



6 REMARKS. 

hoodwinked more by her supposed friends than her pro- 
fessed enemy; and this, anyone taking the trouble of inves- 
tigating the matter will find so, unless from prejudice he 
begins with the firm resolve to find it otherwise ; but 
instead of converting heretics they lose their own faith and 
with it their patriotism, as they consider each so blended 
with the other and locked together in the ecclesiastical 
magic-box that it is impossible to retain one and discard 
the other. T have no conception of an institution more 
worthy of Veneration than the Catholic Church, as a the- 
ological system ; but I feel far differently toward it as a 
mundane concern. "Render to the Lord what is the 
Lord's, and to Caesar what is Caesar's." 

When we see men, who have by vows dedicated them- 
selves to the service of God, make the commandments of 
that God subservient to the tactics of a pawnbroker or a 
ward politician, I do not understand why we are not justi- 
fied, in the eyes of God and of man, in renouncing his 
authority, especially the ungodly part of it, if Ave regard 
our own happiness and wish to preserve our religion from 
contamination. There 

"Is nought so good, but, strained from that fair use, 
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse." 

There must be some reason why the valor and the 
genius, that have triumphed so in the battles and the cause 
of strange lands, have met with such signal failures, in 
Ireland. There must be some obstacle in the way ; and 
until we have removed it, it is useless to be agitating Irish 
grievances, unless to keep us conscious of our degradation. 

It is not expected that these remarks will remove the 
arbitrary despotism of Ireland's real and supposed enemies 
any more ejfectually than reverse the order of the universe; 
but still I consider it a duty incumbent on me to put a drop 
in the bucket, which I hope to God will soon be filled. I 
am well aware, that to be successful in trade, a man must 
not meddle with politics or religion, but I prefer principle 



REMARKS. 7 

to profit; hence my course in this affair. If my efforts 
help the cause any, I will deem myself well paid for my 
trouble. If otherwise, I can rest satisfied with having done 
what I think is my duty and what I know to be right. 
Sursum corda — be not disheartened. N. T. G. 




LETTERS OF MALL THF GRAND. 



ST. PATRICK'S DAY. 
Editors Daily Democrat : 

Sirs : — It seems as if our Irish fellow-citizens are forget- 
ting to make any preparation to celebrate the anniversary 
of St. Patrick. Have the}>" come to the conclusion that 
there was no such person ? — that the whole business was 
an intrigue of Rome, to annul the interests of the African 
church, which was then (432) established in Ireland by 
Peladsius ? It is very true there are sixty-three histories 
extant on this saint, and now in the libraries of Cambridge 
and Oxford. Not one of the writers dare say where he 
was born, what country he could claim as his own, or how 
old he was when he died. Nor can any give any proof 
that he ever dreamed of Ireland or the Irish people, as is ' 
related of him in his vision (Vox Hibernijersium) ; or that 
he did actually consecrate 365 bishops — one for every day 
in the year — and 3,000 priests. It is light on this subject 
which we want. On that day to celebrate, let us have a 
fine concert or lecture, and send the proceeds to feed some 
of the poor of Ireland. A good lecture would afford 
instruction, and the money would help to feed the starving. 

Niall the Grand. 



(An answer to Niall the Grand.) 
ST. PATRICK'S DAY. 

Editors Daily Democrat : 

In reply to " Niall the Grand," I would say that " our 
Irish fellow-citizens " have not forgotten to consider the 
advisability of celebrating the 17th of March. They have 



"niall the grand." 9 

not come to the conclusion that St. Patrick never existed ; 
all Christians believe that he introduced the Christian relig- 
ion into Ireland , even though, according to the authorities 
quoted by "Niall the Grand," there may be some doubt 
as to the exact date of both the birth and death of Ireland's 
apostle. 

With regard to the manner of celebrating the anniver- 
sary of St. Patrick, .why should he suggest any fine con- 
cert, etc., until he has time to read the works of some other 
historians, besides the sixty-three he mentioned; he might 
then be able to let his " Irish fellow-citizens " know when 
and how to celebrate. If he has any idea that his " Irish 
fellow-citizens " are neglecting their duty to the land of St. 
Patrick's vision (Vox Hibernijersium), I would inform him 
that they forwarded nearly five hundred dollars last week, 
in addition to what they had already sent to assist their 
struggling brothers in Ireland, and intend to continue the 
good work in spite of the sneers of the "Grand Niall." If 
he has any suggestions to make with regard to the celebra- 
tion he seems so anxious to take place, he can present 
them either personally or by proxy, at the next meeting of 
the only thorough Irish organization in this city, viz : the 
Land League. Irish American. 



I's Answer.) 
\ 7 IALL THE GRAND. 



st. patrick and the day we celebrate. 
Editors Daily Democrat : 

The old saying is: Those whom the gods wish to destroy, 
they first make mad. My suggestion, as to the apparent 
negligence of our Irish fellow-citizens, was in the most 
friendly spirit. Still, I am charged with sneering at the 
day we are going to celebrate. Are we to wait and consult 
my friend " Irish-American," before we venture to men- 
tion or question the powers that be? Oh ye gods! my 
letter made no reference to that good organization, the land 



10 "niall the grand. 1 ' 

league, the members of which it is an honor to be 
acquainted with: still, I do not like to see them boasting of 
t^eir charity. Did " Irish-American " contribute $5 to it ? 
I think not. But to return to St. Patrick : The reader 
will see your correspondent only believes like the rest ; and 
so, without knowing, he is happy in the delusion. I think 
there is not another country on the face of the earth that 
has had more of this religion preachedto them and profited 
less. Let me draw your attention to a few facts: The 
missionaries of the third century not only preached but 
founded churches and colleges in Ireland. Among the 
names of these men are Holy Diana, Heber, founder of an 
academy at Big-lire in Leinster. St. Kieran and St. Declan 
also preceded St. Patrick, and founded churches. Ibarris 
protested against giving the supremacy and patronage of 
Ireland to anyone but a native. Enough! St. Patrick did 
not introduce Christianity into Ireland. But let us see how 
much social happiness Ireland has enjoyed since her con- 
nection with Rome. Ireland was free and happy. It was 
a land of milk and honey before her connection with that 
power. But in the 348 years between the arrival of St. 
Patrick and the Danish invasion (770) what had occurred ? 
When the Danes came, the Irish did not know how to 
defend themselves from a handful of pirates, allowing them 
to destroy the colleges and churches, and so absorbed in 
religion were we that we did not know the use of arms. 
We suffered the most galling and degrading slavery. 

Do you forget the nose-tax, in default of the money trib- 
ute, to be paid to the Danes ? Oh yes; why were not the 
Irish of that date united ? I will save you the mortifica- 
tion; they paid too much attention to the mandates of 
Rome. 

But if " Irish-American" will give a little more attention 
to the history of Ireland, he will see that the church is 
partly responsible for Ireland's slavery. Let me draw his 
attention to the bulls which were issued at different times 
from Rome ; for instance, Adrian IV. to Henry II. When 
Bruce led the Scottish and Irish army, the pope lent his 



"niall the grand. 11 11 

aid to the English ; for we see O'Neill, Prince of Tyrone, 
making- the following remonstrance, in the year 1318 : " It 
is with difficulty we can bring ourselves to believe that the 
biting and venomous calumnies, with which we and all who 
espouse our cause have been invariably assailed by the 
English, should have found admittance also into the mind 
of your holiness. 1 ' [O'Halloran, p. 50, second div., chapter 
9 ; J. Frost, vol. 2, page 281.] Speaking of the conquest 
of Ireland by Henry, having obtained a papal bull, etc., 
Sherlock (page 33) says Pope Adrian granted a license to 
Henry to invade and convert Ireland. Is it not time that 
irishmen should be honest enough to lay the cause of their 
misery where it properly belongs? I hold our present 
state of slavery is as much to be charged to the church- 
men as to the English ; and until Irishmen realize the fact, 
it is the honest conviction of your correspondent that this 
will continue. 

With many thanks for your valuable space, I remain 
yours, Niall the Grand. 



"IRISH" VS. "NIALL THE GRAND.' 1 



ANOTHER CORRESPONDENT TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME. 

Grand Rapids, Feb. 24, 1882. 
Editors Daily Democrat : 

Sirs : — Will you please permit me to say, for the gratifi- 
cation of this newly-fledged genius, " Niall the Grand," 
who has been figuring in the Democrat within the past 
few days, how thankful, oh ! how very thankful the Irish 
people of Grand Rapids are for his noble conduct in thus 
demonstrating to them the wickedness of their ways by 
wilfully remaining in ignorance. And yet, look at the per- 
versity of those victims of Rome; for a great many of 
them have the ingratitude to say to their would-be benefac- 
tor that the proffered advice smells badly. And yet more 
wicked, they say it is rather late in this, the nineteenth 
century, to pay any attention to the ranting tirade of this 
most illustrious authority, who tells them that when " the 



12 "niall the grand." 

Danes came, the Irish were not able to defend themselves 
from a handful of pirates." Well, for once, we will be 
honest, and say we were not able to defend ourselves ; anil 
why ? Not, as the great Niall would imply, but because 
there were then, as now, traitors and renegades, who pro- 
fessed to be our friends, ready and willing to do the dirty 
work of our enemies. More " wickedness " still ; for they 
add that there are some of the posterity of those same 
traitors and knaves in Grand Rapids to-day. " Most noble 
Niall," I pity you, after such abnegation, self-sacrifice and* 
trouble on your part, to be subject to such treatment from 
such "Rome-ridden slaves " as you say the Irish are. 

And a word in conclusion. It is the opinion of a num- 
ber of people, in this city, that the sooner you take your 
exit out of the public view as a historian and lecturer of 
the Irish people the better ; for it is proved beyond a 
doubt, by your own quotation of history, that either you or 
history — perhaps both — are wrong. So that, before you? 
take to yourself the liberty of correcting " Irish-American, ,T 
you ought to become more authentic yourself. You say 
that Henry obtained a papal bull or license to invade and 
convert Ireland, from Pope Adrian. Now, it has been 
proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Henry never 
attempted to establish that he had received such authority 
till long after the pope's death, and why ? Because such 
authority nevei existed. 

And now, permit me to add that, as the Irish people 
have long since formed their opinion in regard to their 
religion and country, and as they are said to be a perverse 
people, it will take a more learned and logical authority 
than the celebrated Niall the Grand to change them ; for I 
think he might be reasonably suspected of being a traducer 
of both. I am sir, etc., Irish. 



"niall the grand." 13 

" NIALL THE GRAND AGAIN.' 1 



HE REPLIES PROMPTLY TO THE STRICTURES OF " IRISH. 1 ' 

Grand Rapids, February 25. 
Editors Daily Democrat : 

Sirs : — Niall the Grand has received another shot from 
11 Irish. 11 " Irish-American " is hors de combat. Now I 
have only to deal with ignorant " Irish. 1 ' I say ignorant, 
because he has not proven me wrong ; nor did he have the 
intelligence to make any argument to contradict one single 
assertion of Niall the Grand. He is, like a great many, 
satisfied if a priest or Catholic writer denies anything ; it 
must be so. I thank him for his advice to leave the lecture 
and historical field; but before I drop this subject I will 
teach him more than he ever knew. You will notice, he 
makes the bold assertion that Henry the Second did not 
receive a bull from Pope Adrian, the spurious son of a fallen 
priest, and a beggar [Lives of the Popes] ; a scholar by 
charity, educated by Maurice O'Garman, a professor in 
Paris. Irish does not believe in this bull of Adrian. Oh 
no! My authorities are G. Gambensis chaplain to Henry, 
Dr. Leland, Dr. O'Connor, O'Halloran and T. Moore. But 
to make sure — doubly sure — here is Pope Alexander 
the Third's bull, which will speak for itself, and confirms 
Adrian's bull, and is as follows : 

" Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to 
his dear son in Christ, the illustrious king of England, 
health and apostolical benediction : 

" Forasmuch as these things, which have been on good 
reasons granted by our predecessors, deserve to be con- 
firmed in the fullest manner ; and considering the grant of 
the dominion of the realm of Ireland by the venerable 
Pope Adrian, we, pursuing his footsteps, do ratify and con- 
firm the same, (reserving to St. Peter and to the holy 
Roman church, as well in England as in Ireland, the yearly 
pension of one penny from every house) provided that the 
abominations of the land being removed, that barbarous 
people, Christians only in name, may, by your means, be 



14 "niall the grand.'" 

reformed, and their lives and conversation mended, so that 
their disordered church being thus reduced to regular dis- 
cipline, that nation may, with the name of Christians, lie 
so in act and deed. Given at Rome in the year of salva- 
tion 1172.' 1 

How much it restrained the hands of the Irish, not only 
upon this, but upon future occasions, we may infer from 
the following remarkable words in a memorial from O'Neil, 
king of Ulster, presented in 1330 to John XXII, pope of 
Rome, in the name of the Irish people: 

" During the course of so many ages (three thousand 
years), our sovereigns preserved the independence of their 
country. Attacked more than once by foreign powers, they 
wanted neither force nor courage to repel the bold invad- 
ers ; but that which they dared do against force, they could 
not against the simple decree of your predecessors." 
Adrian, etc. 

I quote the following from John Q. Adams 1 address in 
the American House of Representatives, in 1845-6: "The 
pope was in the custom of giving away not only all barbar- 
ous countries, with their inhabitants, but at times civilized 
countries too. He dethroned sovereigns, laid their king- 
doms under interdict, and excommunicated them ; and all 
this was submitted to. And the government of Great Brit- 
ain, at this day, holds Ireland by no other title. Three 
hundred years before the grant of America to Ferdinand 
and Isabella, Pope Adrian gave Ireland to Henry the Sec- 
ond of England ; and England holds the island by that 
title now, unless indeed she sets up another title by con- 
quest ; but Ireland, if in form conquered, has been in 
almost perpetual rebellion ever since. England has been 
obliged to reconquer her some half-dozen times ; and if she 
means to do it now, she must begin soon. The question 
has been raised whether Ireland shall be independent, and 
if we get into a war, it will be a pretty serious matter for 
England to maintain her title. 1 ' We find a bull against the 
British, in favor of William the Conqueror, in 1066 ; one 
in 1311; and a bull of Pope Lucius in favor of John Cum- 



"niall the grand." 15 

ming, who was elected archbishop of Dublin in 1180. 
[O'Halloran, a Roman Catholic writer, 2d Div., page 83.) 

Oh, Mr. Editor, I am full of those Irish bulls. I have 
another shot at "Irish." I hope to destroy his mean big- 
otry. I will hand you the black list of Irish bishops, priests 
and laymen, names very common in our city directory, as 
you will see ; not one of the name of your correspondent 
is to be found in the infamous record. I will also give you 
the names of the traitors from FitzPatrick of Ossory, 1014, 
to Bishop Moriarity of Kerry. 

In conclusion, Mr. Editor, I am s'till asking, as I did in 
my first letter, will some one who knows, tell me if St. 
Patrick ever lived ? The learned Doctor Ledwich, in his 
Antiquities of Ireland, says he did not live. Let us have 
light on the subject. 

Niall the Grand. 



" IRISH " VS. " NIALL THE GRAND." 



MORE ABOUT THE BOGUS BULL OF POPE ADRIAN. 

Grand Rapids, Feb. 27, 1822. 
Editors Daily Democrat : 

Sirs : — In reply to the latest scurrilous production of 
Niall the Grand, I would beg to say that only for the shame- 
ful and deliberate misstatements put forward, I would con- 
sider such "billingsgate" beneath notice. He says he has 
received another shot from " ignorant Irish." Most noble 
victim ! When Irish shoots, he prefers shooting at some- 
thing besides a shadow. Again he tells me, that before he 
is done with this matter that he will teach me more than 
ever I knew. Halt, Niall ! you have done so already ; for 
you have proved beyond doubt that no falsehood is too 
glaring, no mire too filthy for a renegade Irishman to 
indulge and crawl in. 

But to come to the point, behold the virtuous surprise of 
the august Niall at my denying the bull, which it is alleged 
Henry received from Pope Adrian. I would here remark, 



16 . "niall the grand." 

with regard to the foul-mouthed calumny of this model 
writer in reference to the holy pontiff, that the assertion is 
as false as the audacity and malignity of Niall the Grand 
which make it ; for I defy him to point it out in the Lives 
of the Popes. But to return again, I do deny it, and have 
the best authority for doing so. And here let me draw the 
attention of the reader to the vacillating nature of this 
wonderful writer. First, he proposed proving the authen- 
ticity of the original bull. Does he do so ? No ; but he 
comes out with a flourish, and quotes one alleged to have 
been obtained years afterward, and from a different source. 
But more of that anon. 

Now, if the most learned Niall has read all the history 
which he says he has, he should have been in a position to 
give the date of this famous document. But no; he don't, 
nor neither do any of the celebrated authorities which he 
gives us. No, Niall, neither does any one historian ; and 
why ? For the very good reason that there never was any 
date to it. However, Francis Page, Rymer and others 
allege it was obtained in 1154; but this is incorrect, for 
Henry was crowned December 19th, 1154, and conse- 
quently could not have received it in that year. Of course 
I do not deny that a document of the kind did exist. What 
I do deny is the genuineness of it ; and I will give him my 
authority bye and bye. In the first place, as I remarked, 
the bull was never dated ; again, if Henry was so anxious 
"to obtain it, in order to obtain Ireland, it is singular that he 
should wait till long after the pope's death to present his 
credentials to the Irish people. Yet it is alleged that this 
precious epistle was obtained in 1154, and it never saw the 
light of day till 1174, and it was only when his (Henry's) 
authority was annihilated in Ireland, when this "hidden 
treasure" was held up to the gaze of the "ignorant Irish." 
So, so, Niall. 

Now, will you condescend to listen to what McGeoghey- 
an's and Mitchell's "Ireland" say? "In truth, were we 
to consider the circumstances and motives of the bull, it 
has the appearance of a fictitious one." (Page 246). More 



"niall the grand." 17 

authority, Niall; just listen to what the same says of this 
same bull, and the one which you intend should demolish 
" ignorant Irish :" " These bulls have all the appearance of 
forgery. They are not to be met with in any collection. It 
appears, also, that Henry II. considered them so insufficient 
to strengthen his dominion in Ireland that he solicited Pope 
Lucius III., who succeeded Alexander, to confirm them ; but 
that pope was too just to authorize his usurpation, and 
paid no attention to a considerable sum of money sent 
him." Page 250. 

Now, I would direct the attention of the reader to the 
absurdity of " Niall the Grand," in the first place asking 
the Irishmen of Grand Rapids to celebrate the feast of St. 
Patrick, and in the same breath ask " Irish-American " or 
" ignorant Irish " to prove that there was such a man. 
Now the idea is so foolish that u Niall " might just as 
well ask me to prove that one and one make two, or that 
there were such places as America or Ireland. There is 
not a man in Ireland but believes it ; and unless I am 
much mistaken, there was a day when the skeptical Niall 
the Grand believed so too, but as for the change. If that 
is not enough, we have tradition handing it down to us. 
Yes ; and we have the Catholic church, the oldest and 
most reliable historian to all. She celebrates a feast in his 
honor. Again, we have her bishops and priests who read 
a special office in the mass of that day. What a lot of 
fools all those learned men must be to be practicing devo- 
tion in bonor of a saint who never existed ! Niall says he 
did not ; but Usher, Ware, Colgan, Dr. Lanegan and the 
Four Masters say he did. I leave to the public to judge 
whether Niall the Grand or they are the best authority. 

Now, in conclusion, this mighty Niall tells us because 
we are bound to Rome, we are and will be slaves so long 
as we keep up the connection. Most glorious Niall ! what 
a wonderful prophet you are ! You seem to forget our his- 
tory began with Christianity ; our glories were all inter- 
twined with our religion; our national banner was inscribed 
with the emblem of faith, "the green immortal shamrock. 1 ' 



18 U NIALL THE GRAND." 

The brightest names in our history were all associated with 
our religion — Malachi dying in the midst of the monks, and 
clothed with their holy habit; Brian "the great king, 1 ' 
upholding the crucifix before his army on the morning of 
Clontarf, and expiring in its embraces before sunset. All 
those would Niall have us forget and become recreant to, 
like himself. 

Pardon me, Mr. Editor; Tve trespassed too much ; I shall 
not trouble you again. And as I now take leave of this 
modern luminary, Niall, I'll quote for him an adage from 
one of the old classic writers, which says : " Let the cob- 
bler stick to his last and the tailor to hie goose." That this 
is appropriate in the present case is the opinion of 

Yours sincerely, Irish. 



A NEW HAND AT THE BELLOWS. 



j. r. reviews "niall the grand," " irish " and " irish- 
american." 
Editors Daily Democrat : 

Sirs : In your issues of the 21st, 23d, 25th, and 26th, 
there appeared communications under the different nom 
de plumes of " Niall the Grand," "Irish-American" and 
"Irish." These gentlemen seem to think all they have 
said and written on the subject is the end ; and that we 
must perfect our happiness by creating disunion and doubt. 
All Christendom believes the early writers mentioned ; and 
even the authorities of Niall the Grand are all sufficient to 
prove that St. Patrick was the second bishop sent from 
Rome as primate to Ireland. [Usher's Church Hist., chap. 
16, p. 800.] 

Protestant and Catholic alike look with contempt on any 
one who wants to destroy the faith and nationality of the 
people. A free manly discussion of any question relating 
to religion or one's history should be above meanness ; 



u NIALL THE GRAND. 11 19 

men should not forget that they owe it to their neighbors 
to be dignified in talking, writing and dealing with their 
fellow-men. I hope I will satisfy Niall the Grand that Ire- 
land not only had one St. Patrick but two. 

The principal authors of the life of St. Patrick are Saint 
Secudinus or Seaghin, bishop of Domack Sechmald, new 
Donseachlin, in Meath ; he was a disciple of the saint, and 
his nephew by his sister Darerca, and composed hymns in 
honor of his master, which may be seen in Golgan. 

St. Loman, his disciple, and nephew by his sister Figrid, 
Bishop of Athrum, now Tim, in Meath ; St. Mel, bishop of 
Ordach, his disciple and nephew ; also, brother of St. 
Secundinus ; and a second St. Patrick, to whom the saint 
gave his own name, holding him over the baptismal font ; 
all three wrote the acts of his life. The last, after the death 
of his uncle, retired to the abbey of Glastonbury in Somer- 
setshire in England, where he ended his days. 

Saint Benignus, who succeeded St. Patrick in the see of 
Ardmach, is reckoned among the authors of his life. 

These four lives, says Jocelin, were written partly in Irish 
and partly in Latin, by his four disciples. St. Benignus, his 
successor, St. Mel and St. Loman, bishops, and St. Patrick, 
his godson. 11 [MitchelTs History of Ireland, part 2d, chap. 
9, page 141.] 

St. Patrick, according to Usher, was a native of North 
Britain. He was born at a place now called Kirkpatrick, 
not far from the city of Glasgow, in the year A. D. 372. 
[Fitzgerald^ History of Limerick, vol. 1, page 124.] 

I will refer my friend Niall the Grand to Gidas, a disci- 
ple of St. Patrick, and one of the most ancient British his- 
torians, who is said to have presided over the college of 
Arnaugh, founded by St. Patrick. Among its students 
were Swithbert, the apostle of Westphalia; Willibrod, arch- 
bishop of Utrecht ; Zeargall, the philosopher and mathe- 
matician known as Virgil. Even Doctor Ledwich, quoted 
by Niall, expresses his astonishment at the advances learn- 
ing had made in Ireland in the fifth and sixth centuries. 



20 , "NIALL THE GRAND." 

Oh ! dear Niall, there are two sides to history. I prefer 
to look at the brightest side. I hope you will give us some- 
thing which will please and instruct — something that will 
unite us in the love of religion and nationality. As you 
are aware, disunity is and has been the curse of our race. 
Devote your historical knowledge to picturing Ireland in 
the days of her greatness ; cement together all who would 
fall away in doubt. We have a grand record — a proud his- 
tory older than the Gospel. If our people in the hour of 
temptation faltered, you must remember the words of our 
Lord, "Forgive them father; they know not what they 
do." " Irish-American," stop your scribbling. Go on with 
the good work of helping the good Christian man, Parnell, 
in his noble work. " Irish," I am sure, will ever be found 
to protect what is right. Never will a true Irishman forget 
the land of learning. What land can look at such a bright 
past in all her gloom and in all her confusion ? She has 
given to the world men and women who adorned every 
walk in life, and add new lustre to our religion and country. 
Readers, this year, it grieves my heart to tell, 
In battle three relations nobly fell, 
Fighting for king, religion, country, laws — 
Angels and men approve the glorious cause; 
Their mangled sides exhibiting to view 
The Virgin's white, the Martyr's purple hue. 
Well may the herald's emblematic lore 
Their bright achievments blazon o'er and o'er 
With dew-dropt lillies in a purple stream ; 
Marble, immortalize each hero's name. 

J. R. 



NIALL VS. IRISH. 



ANOTHER RED-HOT RLAST ON THE " BOGUS BULL BUSINESS. 

March 1, 1882. 
Editors Daily Democrat : 

Sirs : — In yours, of this morning's issue, appears the last 
of the correspondent " Irish." The lying fool did not give 
one single authority in contradiction of those " bogus " 



"niall the grand." 21 

bulls in question. It is very evident he is mad, because he 
can not write in the spirit of his Irish Christianity. It 
wants another St. Patrick to convert this champion of the 
church. He as well as Niall knows the bull in question 
was issued in 1156; but he has not the spirit of truth or 
honor to say so. Oh! "Mr. Irish!" give us something 
worthy of your race ; and, if the heavens fall, truth will 
still prevail. Your heart says you should speak the truth ; 
but your cowardly tongue will flip. Oh ! what a fallen 
thing a man is, when he for any consideration barters away 
his manhood to the powers that be ! He quotes MacGeog- 
hegan. Now ■ that MacGeoghegan was a priest ; and he, 
knowing full well that those bulls would come in judgment 
and confound the people of Ireland, casts some doubts 
intentionally on them. 

Irish charges me with being foul-mouthed with audacity, 
malignity, calumny and illogicalness. I could say the same 
of him ; but I do not want to use such language to any 
man, when expressing his opinion, even if he be in error. 

I now draw his attention to the falsity of his charges 
against me ; and I will accept his challenge to prove {he 
truthfulness of my statement in reference to Adrian. Irish, 
your attention is called to the following, from S. 0. Hallo- 
ran's History of Ireland. O'Halloran was a Catholic wri- 
ter ; and he states, in book XIII., chap. 3d, page 307, 

"The validity of these bulls, I think, cannot be doubted ; 
it only remains to know how they were procured, and why 
bulls granted at such distances from each other, and for the 
same purpose, should appear at one and the same time?" 

" This investigation will be at the same time a refutation 
of the argument offered against them. Adrian was by 
birth an Englishman — the spurious offspring of a priest. 
Deserted by his father, he repaired to Paris, and was there 
instructed in philosophy and divinity by Marianus O'Gor- 
man, professor of the seven liberal sciences (so he is styled) 
as he himself acknowledges. In 1154 he was raised to the 
pontificate; and some time after Henry II. was proclaimed 



22 , "niall the grand." 

king of England, he sent a formal embassy to congratulate 
the new pope on his elevation. This mark of attention 
in Henry was highly pleasing to Adrian. A strict friend- 
ship arose between them ; and this encouraged the young 
king, whose ambition was boundless, to request a grant of 
the kingdom of Ireland from the pope. It was a flattering 
circumstance to him as pontiff, as it was acknowledging the 
power, assumed by the see of Rome, of disposing of king- 
doms an.l empires. He, by this means, gratified the desire 
of aggrandizing his native country, added a fresh accession 
of wealth and power to Rome, and rendered a mighty 
prince one of her tributaries." 

" Such were the reasons that prevailed on Adrian to 
grant the kingdom of Ireland to Henry." 

And now, as to Adrian being a beggar, I draw Irish's 
attention to the Lives of the Popes, approved by all bish- 
ops and priests, page 95. [Walsh's Ecclesiastical History.] 

" Nicholas Breakspear was born at Abbot Langley, in 
Hertfordshire, England. He was the son of a beggar, and 
lived on Alms from the convent of St. Ruf, near Avignon." 

Niall not only quotes from authority to prove beyond a 
doubt ; but now he will draw on his reserve and satisfy 
" Irish." Father Lavalle, in his " Brian Boroimme, the 
Younger," page 23, says — 

" The republication of the bull granted by the pope made 
a great impression on the minds of the Irish, who, accus- 
tomed to a blind obedience to every mandate from Rome, 
refused on several occasions to fight the English, and even 
surrendered their arms at the orders of Cardinal Vivian, 
the pope's legate, who forbade them,!Junder pain of excom- 
munication to use them against the English." 

Will " Irish " ask himself how it came to pass that the 
MacArthy, of Desmond, was the first of the Munster 
princes who swore fealty to the English monarch. Then 
Donald, king of Thermond, and the prince of Ossory and 
Decies. How will "Irish" expjain away the synod of 
Cashel, which was splendid and numerous. Besides the 



"niall the grand." 23 

legate, there appeared the archbishops of Munster, Leinster 
and Connaught, with their suffragans, and many abbots 
and inferior clergy. 

The bull of Adrian IV. was then produced. 

I now say that 1,773 men under Strongbow, Fitzgerald 
and Fitzmaurice could not have conquered Ireland with 
the help of the traitor, MacMurchad. 

Is there an Irishman living who will say the small 
English army could have conquered Ireland if they had 
not been armed with these bulls of Adrian and Alexander. 
More authority — Fleury, Ecclesiastical History, tome XV., 
p. 423 ; O'Halloran, p. 308. 

Alexander confirmed the donation of Adrian, in conse- 
quence of a request from the Irish clergy. 

The bishop and clergy of Wexford ordered the surren- 
der of the town to the British, to stop the effusion of Chris- 
tian blood. Has the church anything to do with this Irish 
slavery. That she had is proven beyond a doubt, except 
to such as my friend " Irish." 

Christian, bishop of Lismore, who had been for some 
time a Christian monk in the abbey of Clairvalle, under St. 
Bernard, was now constituted the pope's legate in Ireland, 
and in that capacity he presided at a synod held in the 
abbey of Mellifont in 1157. 

Mortogh IV., monarch of Ireland, with many of the 
Irish princes, attended this assembly, at which Dunchad 
O'Melaghlin, king of Meath, was excommunicated and 
deposed, and his territories given to his brother Dermond. 

The union of the Irish church with that of Rome seems 
now to have been completed ; for we find that, on the 
death of Gregory, Archbishop of Dublin, his successor, 
Lawrence O'Toole, was consecrated in Ireland ; for, befoie 
this, they as well as the prelates of Waterford and Limer- 
ick, as already hinted at, received their consecration from 
the archbishop of Canterbury. 

One of the first objects of Henry II., after his arrival in 
this country was to obtain the sanction of the Irish clergy 
to his ambitious designs. 



24 ; "niall the grand." 

For this purpose, a synod was convened in his name, 
which assembled in Cashel in 1172, Christian, bishop of 
Lismore, the pope's legate, presiding upon that occasion. 

Several of the English clergy attended, on the part of 
Henry, and Brompton, abbot of Jerval in Yorkshire, intorms 
us that the king received from every archbishop and bishop 
charters with their seals pendant, whereby they constituted 
him and his heirs kings and lords of Ireland forever ; to 
which Roger Hoveden adds that the king sent a transcript 
of these charters to Pope Alexander, who by his apostolic 
authority confirmed the kingdom to him and his heirs. 

Leland, however, expresses some doubt whether this 
was a general assembly of the clergy, adding that the Pri- 
mate Gelasius certainly did not attend, excusing himself on 
account of age and infirmities ; and that the prelates of 
Ulster followed the example ot their metropolitan ; but 
Giraklus Cambrensis, in opposition to the Irish annalists, 
asserts that Gelasius came to Dublin soon after, and gave 
his full assent to the transactions and ordinances of this 
synod. The proposed design of the king, in convening this 
assembly, was to fulfill the wishes of Pope Adrian, as 
expressed in his bull. [Fitzgerald's Irish Antiquities, page 
142.] 

Mr. Editor, I am now prepared to clip a little of " J. R." 
in my next. I hope he will prove himself better metal, 
more truthful and manly at least, and say something to 
instruct. In my next, I propose to give the cause of the 
quarrel between Henry, Becket and Adrian, all Englishmen, 
the feast of Easter, and the Independence of the old Irish 
church for five hundred years. From 494 to 994, Ireland 
had no connection with Rome. 

Niall the Grand. 



TYRO " TAKES A HAND. 



O "»T.A7T TnUTOHir,"" 



HE REVIEWS "NIALL THE GRAND, "IRISH AND "IRISH-AMERICAN. 

Grand, Rapids, March 3, 1882. 
Editors Daily Democrat : 

Sirs : — It is not at all gratifying to men of Irish or any 



"niall the grand." 25 

other nationality, to see the manner in which " Niall the 
Grand," "Irish" and "Irish-American" are carrying on 
their discussion. If I understand Niall correctly, what he 
wishes to demonstrate to us, and firmly believes himself is, 
first, that the close connection which the popes of Rome 
maintain should exist between the spiritual and temporal 
authorities is detrimentalto the advancement of harmony 
and happiness, in Ireland particularly ; and has been a 
stumbling block to Irish freedom and felicity for the last 
seven hundred years; and secondly, that St. Patrick is a 
myth. What the object of " Irish " is, I wish himself 
would inform us. 

I sincerely agree with Niall, if he holds that religion and 
politics, bringing into consideration the many different 
shades of religious belief, should be practiced and admin- 
istered separately, and that a total separation of the two 
would be advantageous to each, and conducive to general 
good feeling. That the Roman Catholic church has been 
directly or indirectly the cause of nearly if not quite all 
the English-inflicted misery of Ireland, since the time of 
Pope Adrian the Fourth, can hardly be questioned by any 
man giving the subject anything like due and impartial 
investigation. That never-to-be-forgotten bull of pope 
Adrian to Henry the Second of England, authorizing that 
king to plunder Ireland, has caused much superfluous dis- 
cussion. Our forefathers saw the effect it had produced ; 
and we need not wonder that they were imposed upon as 
they were — were willing to believe Adrian or any pope of 
Rome incapable of committing so grievous a crime. How- 
ever, there have always been in Ireland those who would 
have shuddered at the thought of such an act, had there 
appeared to them the least improbability of the authentic- 
ity of the bull that admitted Adrian's grant of Ireland to 
England. None will, I think, doubt the erudition of T. D. 
McGee ; and he freely admits that Adrian presented Henry 
with the document in question. The celebrated Catholic 
historian, Dr. Lingard, whose only incentive here could 
have been the love of truth, speaks thus of the matter : 



26 U N1ALL THE GRAND." 

" To justify the invasion of a free and unoffending people, 
his (Henry's) ambition had discovered that the civilization 
of their manners and the reform of their clergy were bene- 
fits which the Irish ought cheerfully to purchase with the 
loss of their independence. Within a few months after his 
coronation, John of Salisbury, a learned monk, was dis- 
patched to solicit the approbation of Pope Adrian. The 
envoy was charged to assure his holiness that Henry's 
principal object was to provide instruction for an ignorant 
people, to extirpate vice from the Lord's vineyard, and to 
extend to Ireland the annual payment of Peter-pence; but 
that, as every Christian island was the property of the holy 
see, he did not presume to make the attempt without the 
advice and consent of the successor of St. Peter. The 
pontiff, who must have smiled at the hypocrisy of this 
address, praised in his reply the piety of his dutiful son ; 
accepted and asserted the right of sovereignty which had 
been so liberally admitted ; expressed the satisfaction with 
which he assented to the king's request ; and exhorted him 
to bear always in mind the conditions on which that assent 
had been grounded." I quote Lingard before all others, 
because he is acknowledged by the strictest of Catholics as 
a historian of undoubted veracity and ability, and not at 
all likely to confirm an indelible stain on the character of 
Pope Adrian, his own countryman, for the mere love of 
falsehood — Adrian, too, being head of the church of which 
Lingard professed himself a sincere votary and devout 
priest. It is very probable that Adrian did not foresee, 
when he granted Henry permission to "civilize" Ireland, 
any abu&e of the conditions on which that permission was 
given ; for politics was not his forte any more than that of 
other ecclesiastics. Adrian's conditional gift of Ireland to 
England must be considered the first and greatest of an 
indefinite series of. ecclesistical burdens imposed on that 
credulous island. Every clerical interference in temporal 
affairs since that has proved a most bitter curse to it and 
its freedom, and cost thousands of Irish money and shed 
hogsheads of English as well as Irish blood. There seems 



"niall the grand." 27 

to be a fatality attached to all priestly dabbling in politics. 
The meddling- of even the patriotic and holy O'Toole went 
hand in hand with disaster. It is admitted by ' all, except 
those whom it most concerns, that the pretensions of Rome 
to superiority in matters temporal as well as spiritual, in 
Ireland, were the principal weapons wielded by the soldiers 
and the undertakers, since the introduction thither of the 
reformation. And the reasons why non-Catholics there to- 
day are so unanimously English in legislative ideas is, as 
they say and believe, because home-rule means Rome-rule. 
Seeing that politics and religion are so different in nature, 
and that an inseparable union of them is equally imcom- 
patible with the best interests of each, it is a complete 
mystery to a great many outside the priesthood why the 
Catholic church insists so inveterately on continuing the 
union and on making one a mere tool for the other. An 
object of Christ was to promote the general welfare of the 
human family, and to ameliorate the condition of every 
living creature, if we are to judge from his principal com- 
mandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself," or "Do 
unto others as you would have others do unto you." He 
and His Father would not certainly ordain that we should 
waste time and labor building churches and attending serv- 
ices solely for the pleasure ot seeing us do so, as some of 
us, on a cold day, would glory in witnessing a dog swim for 
a stick wantonly thrown into the river. The philanthropic 
prop of Christianity is what supports it with such firmness, 
and not the sword and gibbet. Whether right or wrong, a 
great many Catholics and non-Catholics are strongly im- 
pressed with the belief that " love one' another " is the 
essential commandment, and that all others are only trib- 
utary to it. 

This is my faith, and I think something like the faith of 
Niall the Grand too ; and I believe also that the order or 
institution that wilfully retards human happiness, or even 
the comfort of the brute, is not indifferently Christian, but 
a perfect demon in the full meaning of that word. To wind 
up this matter, I will say that while Ireland gratefully 



28 "niall the grand/' 

accepts the alternate slaps of Rome and England, as she 
does at present, she will be what she is. 

What object Niall has in asserting that St. Patrick is a 
myth is something too hard for me to penetrate. St. Pat- 
rick is said to have brought no army with him to scourge 
the inhabitants, and no weapons but good will toward man, 
and the salutary precepts of Christianity ; and, so far as I 
can judge, the simple doctrine introduced by him^into Ire- 
land was far from being the complex unintelligible concern, 
that some forms ot Christianity to-day are. St. Patrick is 
believed by a large majority of our learned men to have 
lived and taught in Ireland, and to have been one of the 
most amiable of men. What then induces Niall, to doubt 
his having existed? "J. R." indulges in the opposite 
extreme, and affirms that L there were two or three St. Pat- 
ricks. Bravo ! J. R. ; the more the better. Still, if it is all 
the same to J. R. and Niall, it would be highly pleasing to 
quite a few Irishmen if they compromise the matter and 
give us, for keeps, one respectable St. Patrick, in drinking 
to whose memory, next 17th, we can for a short time 
drown our sorrows. 

It is to be hoped, that, hereafter Nial the Grand and Irish 
will take a more courteous mode of settling their griev- 
ances than applying to each other such adjectives as " scur- 
rilous," " ignorant," etc. 

By giving the above insertion in your valuable paper, 
you will confer a favor on a number of your readers. 
Thankfully yours, Tyro. 



ARTFUL POLICY OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. 



It has been the policy of the English government, when- 
ever it meditated any great wrong against the Irish people, 
to employ, first of all, some pliant priest to do the prepara- 
tory work. This was the trick of Henry II. No sooner 
had that monarch laid an evil eye, on Ireland, than he 
communicated his design to Giraldus Cambrensis, a priest ; 



" NIALL THE GRAND.'" 29 

and this Giraldus Cambrensis, at the express command of 
his royal master, immediately set to work to write a "His- 
tory of Ireland," a book full of lies from cover to cover. 
In this " history of Ireland," the Irish are described as a 
savage, murderous and irreligious people. Transcripts of 
the book were made, and sent all over Europe. The book 
was sent to Rome also. The aim of Henry II. was appar- 
ent. It was to create an opinion unfavorable to the good 
name of the Irish, so that when he should undertake his 
invading enterprise, the act would find some show of palli- 
ation. Listen to what Abbe Geoghegan (History of Ireland, 
p. 18,) says: 

A PRIEST IN THE ENGLISH INTEREST WRITES A LYING HISTORY OF 
IRELAND, IN ORDER TO FURTHER ENGLISH INTRIGUE AT ROME. 

" Gerald Barry, a priest, and native of the country of 
Wales, in England, called Cambria in Latin, (from whence 
is derived the name of Cambrensis, under which he is 
known,) was the first stranger who undeatook to write the 
history of Ireland, in order to perpetuate the calumnies 
which his countrymen had already published against its 
inhabitants. Circumstances required that they should 
make the Irish pass for barbarians. The title of Henry 
the Second to Ireland was founded only upon a bull ob- 
tained clandestinely from Pope Adrian the Fourth, an 
Englishman by birth. The cause of this bull was a false 
statement, which Henry had given to the Pope, of the 
impiety and barbarism of the Irish nation. Cambrensis 
was then ordered to verify, by writing, the statement upon 
which the granting of the bull had been extorted. He did 
not fail to intermix his work with calumnies and groundless 
absurdities. However, the credit of a powerful king knew 
how to make even the court of Rome believe them. It 
was in this spirit that Cambrensis wrote his history; and 
from thence the English authors have taken the false color- 
ing under which ancient. Ireland has been represented." 

Here we find that the first man who wrote a history of 
Ireland in the English interest — the first model and proto- 
type of Froude in our day — was a priest. The first agent, 



30 "niall the grand." 

too, employed by the British Government, at Rome, in the 
English interest, and against Ireland, was a priest. His 
name is John of Salisbury. Here is what the nun of Ken- 
mare, in her history of Ireland, (p. 274,) says of the trans- 
action : 

AN ENGLISH PRIEST IS SENT TO ROME, TO ASK IRELAND OF THE 
POPE, AS A GIFT FOR THE KING OF ENGLAND. 

" It has been already shown that the possession of Ire- 
land was coveted, at an early period, by the Norman rulers 
of Great Britain. When Henry II. ascended the throne in 
1154, he probably intended to take the matter in hands at 
once. An Englishman, Adrian IV., filled the papal chair. 
The English monarch would naturally find him favorable 
to his own country. John of Salisbury, then chaplain to 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, was commissioned to 
request the favor. No doubt he represented his master as 
very zealous for the interests of religion, and made it ap- 
pear that his sole motive was the good, temporal and 
spiritual, of the barbarous Irish. At least, this is. plainly 
implied in Adrian's bull. 11 

We have pointed out these two unscrupulous priests 
working in the English interest. Were they unscrupulous 
because they were priests? Certainly not. But it is be- 
cause they were priests — men wearing the cloak of relig- 
ion — that Henry II. deemed them the fittest instruments to 
employ in furthering his unscrupulous design. 

Some one, perhaps, will tell us that this bull of Adrian 
IV. is a forgery. Its authenticity has been denied by some 
few ecclesiastical orators of late ; but denial is not disproof. 
Be this as it may, however, the plottings of the English 
king against the rights and liberties of the Irish people — 
and the iniquitous service rendered him by his English 
priests — are indisputable. But the bull itself cannot be 
questioned. The story itself has the elements of proba- 
bility. It is undeniable that the power of taking away the 
government of a country from one man and giving it to 
another man was claimed and exercised by the pope in 



"null the grand. 1 ' 31 

that age. It is shown that Henry II. sought to influence 
Rome in his behalf, in this transaction ; and it is he that 
based his claim on the bull of Adrian IV. [Nun of Ken- 
mare's History of Ireland.] 



IRISHMEN ! LOOK AND READ FOR YOURSELVES ! 



MAYNOOTH COLLEGE ENDOWED BY ENGLAND. 

The American revolution closed. Then arose the French 
revolution. This latter revolution was an uprising against 
tbe power of the aristocracy, and England— the most aris* 
tocratic nation in the world— trembled at the prospect. 
She feared these French revolutionists would stir up the 
Irish ; and so they did. Wolfe Tone, Napper Tandy, Lord 
Edward Fitzgerald, with others, had put themselves in 
communication with the French leaders, and were now 
active in organizing an insurrection in Ireland. With this 
danger staring them in the face, the astute statesmen of 
England, abandoning their former policy of hostility to the 
Catholic church, began to make friendly overtures to the 
Irish priests. Said these statesmen to the Irish bishops : 
li Why have you not a college in Ireland for the training of 
priests ? It doesn't look well to see ecclesiastical students 
go to France for their education. That's a bad country, 
you know, tor young Irishmen." So, in 1795, Maynooth 
College was founded. It received a government grant of 
$40,000 a year. After a while the government grant was 
raised to $150,000 a year, not to speak of $300,000 expend- 
ed by government, from time to time, by way of repairs on 
the college. This appears very generous in the British 
government; but the generous British government knew 
right well what it was driving at. Speaking of this May- 
nooth business, Sister Clare (History of Ireland, p. Ill,) 
says : 

THE MAYNOOTH GRANT A BRIBE FROM THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT 
TO LOYALIZE THE IRISH PRIESTS. 

" As the government had some apprehensions lest the 



32 , U N1ALL THE GRAND. 11 

Catholics should avenge themselves in any way for the 
duplicity with which they had been treated [in the rejec- 
tion of the* Catholic claims] it was proposed to establish the 
College of Maynooth. The excuse to those who objected 
to granting even the least favor to Catholics, had the advan- 
tages of being a plausible one. It was said that being edu- 
cated abroad tended to render them [the priests] disloyal ; 
and certainly to deny a man's education in his own coun- 
try, and oblige him to endure the labor and expense of 
expatriation in order to obtain it, was not naturally the best 
, method of inducing affection for the power which com- 
pelled this course. It was, moreover, believed that if gov- 
ernment endowed Maynooth, the Irish hierarchy would 
feel bound in return to suppoit the government. It was at 
least certain to all but the most obtuse, that a rebellion was 
imminent in Ireland ; and this seemed a probable means of 
enlisting the Catholic clergy on the side of England. 11 

It was not to advance the Catholic faith, but to crush 
Irish nationality, that the British government gave its aid 
and support to Maynooth College. This is unquestionable. 
One hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year is a big sum; 
but England didn't give away this big sum for nothing. It 
was advance payment for loyal services to be performed. It 
was a bribe to the Irish bishops to hold Ireland — in co- 
operation with the British police and soldiery — a province 
of England. The millions of dollars, expended by the 
English government on Maynooth college, have been well 
and fully repaid. Every student entering that college 
had first, before he could be ordained priest, to take this 
oath : 

THE MAYNOOTH OATH, 

IN WHICH EVERY PRIEST SWEARS TO DISCLOSE ALL TREASONS 
AGAINST THE ENGLISH SOVEREIGN. 

I, A. B., do hereby declare that I profess the Roman 
Catholic religion. I, A. B., do sincerely promise and swear 
that I will be faithful, and bear true allegiance to his Majesty 
King George the Third, " and him will I defend to the 



"niall the grand." 33 

utmost of my power AGAINST ALL CONSPIRACIES 
and attempts whatsoever that shall be made against his 
person, crown, or dignity ; and I will do my utmost 
endeavor to disclose and make known to His Majesty, his 
heirs and successors, ALL TREASONS and traitorous con- 
spiracies which may be formed against him or them ; and 
I do faithfully promise to maintain, support and defend, to 
the utmost of my power, the successor of the crown ; 
which succession, by an act entitled an act for the further 
limitation of the crown, and the better securing the rights 
and liberties of the subject, is and stands limited to the 
Prince Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover 
and the heirs of her body, being Protestants : hereby utterly 
renouncing and abjuring obedience or pretending a right to 
the crown of these realms ; and I do swear that I reject 
and detest as an unchristian and impious position, that it is 
lawful to murder or destroy any person or persons what- 
soever, for or under pretense of their being heretics or infi- 
dels, and also that unchristian and impious principle that 
faith is not to be kept with heretics or infidels ; and I fur- 
ther declare that it is not an article of my faith, and that I 
do renounce, reject and abjure the opinion that princes, 
excommunicated by the pope and council or by any author- 
ity of the. see of Rome, or by any authority whatsoever, 
may be deposed and murdered by their subjects, or by any 
person whatsoever; and I do promise that I will not hold, 
maintain or abet any such opinion or any other opinion 
contrary to what is expressed in this declaration ; and I do 
declare that I do not believe that the pope of Rome, or any 
other foreign prince, prelate, state or potentate hath or 
ought to have any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, 
superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within 
this realm ; and I do solemnly, in the presence of God, 
profess, testify and declare that I do make this declaration, 
and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of 
the words of this oath, without any evasion, equivocation 
or mental reservation whatever, and without any dispensa- 
tion already granted by the pope, or any authority of the 



34 "niall the grand." 

see of Rome, or any person whatever, and without think- 
ing that I am or can be acquitted before God or man, or 
absolved of this declaration', or any part thereof, although 
the pope or any other person or authority whatsoever 
shall dispense with or annul the same or declare that it is 
null or void, so help me God." 

England paid $150,000 a year to the Irish hierarchy — 
the trustees of Maynooth — on condition that the ecclesias- 
tics educated there would act as spies and informers for 
England afterwards. This is the amount of the affair. 
Scores of noble young Irishmen — to their immortal honor 
be it said — crossed the seas, and paid for their education 
in France, in Spain, or in some other country, rather than 
subscribe to this humiliating oath. This oath was continued 
down to the accession of the present monarch, Queen Vic- 
toria, and far into her reign. 



THE DESTRUCTION OF IRELAND'S PARLIAMENT. 



The next maneuvre of the British government was to 
rob Ireland of her parliament ; and in the accomplishment 
of this design, English statesmen sought and received the 
aid of the Irish hierarchy. Lord Castlereagh — in whose 
hands the Catholic bishops were but as so many children — 
was the prime wirepuller in this plot. Says the Nun of 
Kenmare (History of Ireland, p. 220) : 

SERVICE RENDERED BY THE IRISH BISHOPS TO ENGLAND, IN HELP- 
ING TO CARRY THE " ACT OF UNION." 

" It is to be regretted that the Catholic bishops, who 
worked for the Union, did not see some of the private cor- 
respondence in which they were mentioned, and did not 
hear some of the private conversations which have been 
recorded and sent down to posterity. Sir J. Hippsley, who 
was specially employed to cajole the Catholics, wrote to 
Lord Castlereagh : 

" The Speaker told me, some time before, that Mr. Pitt 



"niall the grand." 35 

had much approved the suggestions I had offered, with 
respect to the distinction and checks on the monastic 
clergy. Your lordship will permit me to quote a vulgar 
Italian proverb, which is this: 'One must be aware of a 
bull before, of an ass at his heels, and of a friar on all 
sides.' Seven years' experience on Catholic grounds con- 
vinced me that this adage was well imagined." 

"On the 5th of June, 1799, the Earl of Altamont wrote 
from Westport House: ' The priests have. all appeared to 
sign ; and though I am not proud of many of them as asso- 
ciates, I will take their signatures to prevent a possibility of 
a counter declaration.' " 

"On the 3d of June, 1799, Lord Castlereagh wrote to 
the Duke of Portland that the rebellion was managed by 
'the inferior priests.' Theie were certainly some of the 
Catholic clergy who united with the rebels, in self-defense ; 
but a careful examination of the correspondence of the 
times will show at once that they were few in number, and 
that the government relied much on the co-operation of 
the priests, even at the very time that many of them were 
being treated with inhuman cruelty. On the 20th of July, 
1799, Lord Cornwallis wrote, to the' Duke of Portland, that 
the clergy of the church, particularly the superior, coun- 
tenanced the measure ; and that the linen-merchants of 
the north were much too busy with their trade to think 
much on the subject." 

Lord Castlereagh deemed Catholic support " absolutely 
necessary " to the success of his infamous project. He so 
declared himself. Quoting from some of his private let- 
ters, Sister Clare (p. 244) writes : 

CASTLEREAGH WORKING FOR CATHOLIC INFLUENCE TO CARRY THE 

UNION. 

" Lord Castlereagh wrote a ' most private ' letter to the 
Right Honorable William Pitt, on the 1st of January, 1801, 
in which he puts the whole state of the case into the plain- 
est possible language, in which he showed how absolutely 



36 "niall the grand.'" 

necessary the assistance of the Catholic body was in order 
to carry the union ; and how lie had been ordered to draw 
the Catholics on. The object was gained : and, if there 
was not another document in existence, besides this letter, 
to show how shamefully the Catholics were duped, it would 
be more than sufficient. At last, with considerable diffi- 
culty, the upper class of Catholics, (i. e., the bishops, priests 
and aristocracy) were made to understand how they had 
been treated. It. might have been supposed that they had 
learned a life-long lesson; but there are persons on whom 
experience is wasted." 



ENGLAND'S ATTEMPT TO ENSLAVE THE IRISH 

CHURCH. 



THE IRISH HIERARCHY CONSENT THAT THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT 
SHALL PENSION THE PRIESTS AND HAVE THE RIGHT TO VETO 
CANDIDATES FOR BISHOPS. 

At first England made war upon Ireland's nationality. 
Then England tore away from Ireland her parliament ; and 
now England comes forward, and with unblushing audacity 
asks the Catholic bishops of Ireland to recognize the Eng- 
lish king as the virtual head of the Catholic church in Ire- 
land; and, (will the astounding revelation be believed?) the 
four archbishops of Ireland, with six other bishops, trustees 
of Maynooth, accepted the proposition ! This they did 
after due deliberation in convention. Not only did they 
concede this, but they consented furthermore that the 
priests of Ireland should be lowered to the level' of pen- 
sioned officials of the British government. McGee tells of 
the transaction as follows, in his book entitled " Attempts 
to Establish the Protestant Reformation in Ireland," p. 284: 

" On the 17th, 18th and 19th of January, 1789, the 
bishops, who were Maynooth trustees, sat at Dublin, ' to 
deliberate on a proposal from government for an independ- 
ent provision (i. e. a pension) for the Roman Catholic 
clergy of Ireland, under certain regulations not incompat- 



"niall the grand." 37 

ible with their doctrine, discipline or just influence. 1 A 
minute of this meeting, signed by the four archbishops and 
the bishops of Meath, Cork, Kildare, Elphin, Ferns, and 
Ardagh, was approved and submitted to the ministers. The 
1 certain regulations ' were, in a word, to control the ap- 
pointment of bishops, to give government a veto on bishops 
elect. The ten prelates just mentioned agreed to lay before 
government the names of the nominees ; they undertaking 
to ' transmit the name of said candidate, if no objection 
be made against him, for appointment to the holy see,' 
within a month of receiving it. Further the prelates agreed 
1 If government have any proper objection against such 
candidates, the president of the election will be informed 
thereof within one month after the presentation, who in 
that case, will convene the electors to the election of an- 
other candidate.' By this undertaking, Primate O'Reilly 
and the hierarchy, in 1799, granted to the State what 
[another] primate O'Reilly and the hierarchy, in 1666, suf- 
fered exile and death rather than concede. Fortunately for 
the Irish church, the state neglected to conclude the com- 
pact at that time." 

" And here let us glance at the temporal evils inflicted on 
the Irish people through this outrage done to Ireland's 
nationality. But the injury done to the church itself was 
no less great. Says the Nun of Ken mare, referring to the 

EVIL EFFECTS OF IRELAND'S SUBJECTION TO ENGLISH DOMINATION; 

"One fearful evil followed from this Anglo-Norman inva- 
sion. The Irish clergy had hitherto been distinguished for 
the high tone of their moral conduct; the English clergy 
unhappily were not so rich in this virtue ; and their evil 
communication had a most injurious effect upon the nation 
whom it was supposed they should be so eminently capable 
of benefiting." 

It will be seen now that neither Ireland nor true relig- 
ion gained anything by the blow given to Ireland's nation- 
ality. 



NIALL THE GRAND. 

THE CHURCH'S LOSS. 



In 1836, Bishop England estimated the Catholic popula- 
tion of this country at 1,200,000. The total population of 
the United States then was fifteen millions. The number 
of persons lost to the church in fifty years, preceding 1836, 
was, says Bishop England, 3,750,000. 

" If I say," adds Dr. England, " upon the foregoing data, 
that we ought, if there were no loss, to have 5,000,000 of 
Catholics and that we have less than one million and a 
quarter, there must be a loss of three millions and three- 
quarters, at least; and the persons so lost are found among 
the various sects to the amount of thrice the number of the 
Catholic population of the whole country." — [Works of 
Bishop England, vol. 3, page 126-127.] 

Bishop England did not attempt to estimate the loss of 
the hundred and fifty years preceding 1836. 

The Catholic population of the United States to-day is 
some ten millions. But the number of persons who ought 
to be Catholics by right of descent from settlers in this 
country, from the beginning, and who to-day are to be 
found among the sects or in the ranks of Nothingarianism, 
is estimated at eighteen millions. — [See statistics and proofs 
in Irish World of July 25, 1874.] 



WE ARE ALWAYS GUARDED. 



CHARACTER OF THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC ARISTOCRACY — EVEN THE 
BEST OF THEM A MISERABLE SET. 

But the Catholic Englishman (we speak of the rule) is 
the cunning creature who, at Rome, always gives a bad 
name to Ireland's patriots, and who, whilst using the Irish 
for his own purposes, despises the Irish in the depth of his 
heart. We have no pleasure in saying this; but this is the 
fact ; and we cannot deny it. Listen to Father Burke. In 
his " sermons and lectures," p. 219, Father Burke, speak- 



"niall the grand." 39 

ing of Englishmen — even English Catholics, his own per- 
sonal friends — says : 

" My friends, I know the English people well. Some of 
the best friends that I have in the world are in England. 
They have a great many fine qualities ; but there is a secret 
passive contempt for Ireland and for Irishmen." 

Hear what the Sister of Clare says of the English Cath- 
olics. The English Catholic aristocracy, even at the time 
they needed the political aid of the Irish most, scorned to 
associate with them ! Such was their utter contempt for 
the mere Irish. Sister Clare (Life of O'Connell, p. 424) 
says : 

" We have already said something of the political opin- 
ions of English Catholics. They made then the fatal mis- 
take of disassociating themselves from their Irish brethren. 
We have seen how some of them were even willing to 
forego the name of Catholic, and their self-respect along 
with it, for the miserable imaginary advantage of a higher 
social respectability. It is a matter of history, that the 
great majority — that, in fact, an overwhelming majority of 
English Catholics apostatized from their religion, to pre- 
serve their worldly goods. A noble few remained faithful ; 
but the leaven of worldliness was at work even amongst, 
these few ; and they readily listened to any specious plea 
which would tend to lessen that, isolation from their Prot- 
estant fellow-countrymen, which they felt to be, and which 
was, a social bar sinister." 

HOSTILITY OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS TO IRISH. 

In 1829, O'Connell won Catholic Emancipation. It was 
the English Catholic aristocracy, and not the Irish people, 
who gained anything by the measure. Yet when O'Connell 
began his repeal movement, the English Catholics became 
his most virulent enemies. In a letter written by Daniel 
O'Connell (Nov. 9, 1873,) to Archbishop MacHale, he says: 

"Dr. England was with me yesterday; he gave me some 
strong evidence of hostility of the English Catholics to 



40 "niall the grand.' 1 

those of Ireland. He has promised to give it to me in 
writing ; and I will send your grace a copy." 

The English Catholic is to-day as he has ever been. Such 
is the testimony of Bishop England. Such was O'ConnelTs. 
Such is the experience of every Irishman. Niall the Grand 
is not an exception. ' 

And now, let me say, with wealth and honors came in- 
trigues and conspiracies, and plottings for place among 
churchmen and princes, and general corruption in church 
and state. A king would thrust a creature of his own into 
the papal chair, and maintain him by force of arms. Some- 
times Christendom would be scandalized at the spectacle of 
three anti-popes. Spain would recognize one, France an- 
other, and Germany a third. All these anti-popes would 
be fulminating bulls and excommunications against one 
another. The minor priests, too, did as they liked. What 
was the result of all this? What does church history tell? 
Slavery among the people; ignorance among the clergy; 
strifes among the bishops as to who should be first ; rapac- 
ity and immorality amongst all classes ; continual wars 
among rulers, and heresies and schisms in the Universal 
church. These were the fruits of ecclesiastical wealth and 
honors ! Greece fell away from the church. With Greece 
may be counted that immense country, Russia, which now 
numbers sixty millions of people. The churches of Asia 
Minor, of Egypt, and other parts of Africa, as well as of 
other countries, had long since rotted and perished. Then 
in the sixteenth century followed Germany ; then Sweden ; 
then Norway ; then England ; then Scotland, with portions 
of France and Switzerland. All these countries aposta- 
tized because the priesthood were corrupt and worldly. 

His Eminence, Cardinal Cullen, in his time, in his lenten 
pastorals, denounced " sedition, revolution, Fenianism and 
Ribbonism," and orders that all persons, connected in any 
way with those who hold meetings, balls, etc., in support 
of such principles, shall be deemed by their spiritual direc- 
tors thereby guilty of sin. This was a widespread and an 



"niall the grand. 1 ' 41 

astounding declaration against all of us who are laboring 
for a revolution — that is, a change in the political and social 
condition of four or five millions of Irishmen and women 
in Ireland. " Sedition !" If the word mean anything at 
all, it is the expression of people's dissatisfaction with some- 
thing that annoys, impedes, troubles, injures them. Lord 
Castlereagh, of glorious and pious memory, brought into 
the English parliament several acts to repress free speech, 
one of which was a bill to repress and punish sedition ; and 
" sedition " was defined by this bill to be " the uttering 
and publishing of words tending to bring the government 
and laws of the country into hatred and contempt." Well, 
there are the laws of England, operating in Ireland for 700 
years past ; and you who speak in hatred and contempt of 
these laws must have been committing sin against God all 
the time : and those Cardinals tell you there is for you no 
sacramental forgiveness, unless you repent of the sin, and 
leave off speaking or writing in hatred of the laws which 
England has forced upon Ireland at the point of the bayo- 
net. Revolution was also denounced by His Eminence as 
sinful. Now, revolution means change. For instance : the 
change or revolution which, over one hundred years ago, 
converted the thirteen dependent colonies of England in 
North America into a glorious republic, the " United States 
of America," into which ten or twelve millions of His 
Eminence's countrymen have expatriated themselves, escap- 
ing from Ireland and the horrors of its English governors 
as best they could, and finding, as a result of that change, 
homes, wages, education, religious and political liberty, free 
lands and free schools, to ask for which at home was deemed 
rank sedition, a punishable crime ; the same now being in 
the eyes of His Eminence, Cardinal Cabe, a punishable sin. 
Yet, there is no place on the habitable globe where the 
religion of His Eminence is more respected, better observed 
and more substantially supported than in this glorious 
republic. 

His Eminence condemned " secret societies " as tending 
to generate immorality, sensuality, etc. It is a matter to 



42 U NIALL THE GRAND." 

create surprise that there are some secret societies in the 
world which have received the blessings of the Catholic 
Church, through the precious hands of the holy father him- 
self. For instance, King Alfonso was called to the throne 
of Spain, a few years ago, by a thoroughly ' secret society ' 
composed of grandees, generals, priests, lawyers, and oth- 
ers of the Spanish aristocracy ; and the head of that secret 
society, as soon as they thought the "pear ripe" for pro- 
claiming him king, obtained the prompt blessing of the 
holy father. Don Carlos VII., of Spain, is head, also, of 
another secret society, in which many of the nobility and 
Catholic clergy of Europe are enrolled and are contributors, 
the object of which is to place Don Carlos, by force of arms, 
even to the point of the bayonet, on the throne of Spain, 
as ruler over an unwilling people, who prefer to rule them- 
selves and make their own laws without the assistance of 
such a red-handed legislator. His holiness, on April 12, 
1874, blessed the wife of Don Carlos, on her safe delivery 
of a daughter, addressing and congratulating her as " your 
Majesty " — as Queen of Spain. There was another secret 
society established in France in the year 1874, whose object 
it was to bring over the Count de Chambord to rule the 
French people on the good old plans that prevailed under 
the " white flag " of his Bourbon ancestors ; which plans, 
if restored, would compel all the small landed-proprietors 
of France, of whom there are six millions, to resign their 
lands to the descendants of the old nobility of France, the 
"Emigres" of ^-'OS, and to become again their tenants 
and serfs, as in the good old times of the Louises. The 
Catholic Bishop of Orleans and the Catholic Archbishop 
of Paris commanded all their cures to call from their pul- 
pits upon their various congregations, on the holy Sabbath, 
to pray to God for the restoration of the Bourbon King. 
That was another " secret society " which the church did 
not condemn. All this appears incompatible with Cardinal 
.McCabe's dicta. Is there liberty in the church for kings, 
lords and bishops to conspire secretly to effect their pur- 
poses ; and is this liberty denied and punished by exclusion 



"niall the grand." 43 

from religious sacraments, in the common people, who toil 
to produce the wealth which the others may appropriate 
by laws of their own making? Can this be regarded as 
the equity of religion ? 

The Fenians were condemned by their Eminences Gullen 
and McCabe, in their pastorals. Now the ten, who de- 
nounce the " Irish World " in Cincinnati, are of the same 
type. 

Why ? The Fenians conceived that a change was 
required in the laws — in their making and their administer- 
ing in Ireland. A conception growing from centuries of 
misrule — centuries of landlord oppression — growing from 
the destruction of two hundred and forty thousand peasant 
dwellings, the quenching of two hundred and forty thous- 
and hearth -fires in Ireland, within the last twenty years, 
and the scattering of millions of men, women and children 
ot Ireland over all parts of the globe, by forcible evictions 
from their homesteads, even by the aid of the police and 
army. The Fenians conspired to overthrow the heartless 
men, who compassed and effected these national outrages. 
They did some of the work which they contemplated. 
They broke down forever religious ascendancy in Ireland. 
The Irish Church establishment is gone, never to return ; 
and it was abolished by the Fenians, and by the Fenians 
alone. An incision has been made in the land monopoly, 
which will be widened, day by day, hereafter. Instead of 
gratitude for this, the Fenians have curses loud and deep ; 
for did not Cardinal Cullen excommunicate them from his 
church; and has not Bishop Moriarity judged them — yes, 
judged them — and condemned them to hell, regretting that 
hell was not hot enough nor eternity long enough to inflict 
sufficient punishment! 

The whole career of Cardinal Cullen as Archbishop and 
Cardinal, in Ireland, has been singularly marked by opposi- 
tion to every effort and aspiration of the Irish people to 
relieve themselves from the galling tyranny; and now Car- 
dinal McCabe, his blood relation, does the same service. 
Oh! "Irish!" 



44 "niall the grand." 

OATH OF THE EMANCIPATED CATHOLIC 
OFFICE-SEEKER. 



" I, A. B., do sincerely promise and swear that I will be 
faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King George 
the Fourth, and will defend him to the utmost of my 
power against all conspiracies and attempts whatever which 
shall be made against his person, crown or dignity ; and I 
will do my utmost endeavor to disclose and make known 
to His Majesty, his heirs and successors, all treasons and 
traitorous conspiracies which may be formed against him 
or them ; and I do faithfully promise to maintain, support 
and defend, to the utmost of my power, the succession of 
the crown, which succession, by an act entitled l An act 
for the further limitation of the Crown, and better securing 
the rights and liberties of the subject,' is and stai.ds limited 
to the Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and the heirs 
of her body, being Protestants, hereby utterly renouncing 
and abjuring any obedience or allegiance unto any other 
person claiming or pretending a right to the crown of these 
realms ; and I do further declare that it is not an article of 
my faith, and that I do renounce, reject and abjure the 
opinion that princes excommunicated or deprived by the 
pope, or any other authority of the see of Rome, may be 
deposed or murdered by their subjects or by any person 
whatsoever ; and I do declare that I do not believe that the 
pope of Rome or any other foreign prince, prelate, person, 
state or potentate hath or ought to have any temporal or 
civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, directly 
or indirectly, within this realm. I do swear that I will de- 
fend, to the utmost of my power, the settlement of prop- 
erty, within this realm, as established by the laws ; and 
I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any 
intention to subvert the present church establishment as 
settled by law within this realm ; and I do solemnly swear 
that I never will exercise any privilege to which I am or 
may become entitled, to disturb or weaken the Protestant 
religion or Protestant government in this kingdom : and I 



"null the grand." 45 

do solemnly, in the presence of God profess, testify and 
declare that I do make this declaration, and every part 
thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of words of this 
oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reserva- 
tion whatsoever." 

The heart of Erin everywhere to-day 

Throbs with the magic of a mighty love ; 
" God bless his life and death," the millions pray, 
" And crown him with celestial light above !" 

Aye, take him to your hearts, ye exiled band ; 

For who more worthy of the love of Gael 
Than he whose name is blest in every land — 

True patriot-priest, immortal Joiin McHale ! 

Sursurn Corda, (Be not disheartened). 



IRELAND'S BONDAGE. 



THE YOKE MADE TIGHTER BY POLITICO- 
RELIGIOUS AGENCIES. 



Can Ireland gain her independence so long as the influ- 
ence of the clergy is on the side of the English ? It is 
apparent to all liberal-minded men that O'Connell's failure 
was partly if not entirely caused by the influence of the 
clergy. That this influence has had its headquarters at 
Rome is evident from the testimony of the late Mr. Grevillo, 
who was for over forty years clerk of the English Privy 
Council. He has stated in his published memoirs that, 
during all his time, there never was a Catholic bishop 
appointed by the pope, in Ireland, with only one exception, 
who had not previously been approved and indicated to his 
holiness by the English agent in Rome — and the single 
exception, in forty years, was MacHale. Reader, if you 
are an Irishman, a little reflection on the following sad 
story of the great Fenian movement will be advantageous 
to you; therefore, save this hurriedly-written sketch of the 

history of our country. Are not the men such as Bishop 
Gilmore more dangerous to religion and morals than lay- 
men? The story of the failure of the Fenians is intro- 
duced, here, with all due respect for the men who upheld 
that godlike spirit of resistance to British rule in Ireland. 

HOW SHALL WE FREE IRELAND? 

This is a question that for many a long age has occupied 
the minds of the deepest thinkers of the Irish race. O'Con- 
nell, at one period of his life, had the freedom of Ireland in 
the palm of his hands. When he stood on Tara Hill, on 
the 15th of August, 1843, with a million men around him, 



"niall the grand." 47 

with the English Chartists, the French Republicans and the 
whole American nation at his back, he might then have 
declared the independence of Ireland, and there was no 
force in England (as Peel admitted,) to restrain him. But, 
ambitious to establish a new force in political agitations, he 
rudely rejected the co-operation of the English Chartists; 
politely declined all aid from the French Republicans, 
though tendered to him by Ledru Rollin, their chief ; to the 
Southern Americans he flung back their money with scorn 
because it came from slaveholders ; and he denounced the 
sons and friends of the '98 men as miscreants. When Peel 
saw that O'Connell had thus cast away with contempt all 
promises of physical aid, he seized upon him, clapped him 
into prison, broke the spell which his voice and name had 
spread over the Irish race, and which he (O'Connell) never 
after re-established. From that day our cause and hopes 
declined ; and a whole generation has grown up in despair, 
in ignorance of their rights, and in fear almost of asserting 
any claim at all to national rights. Opposed to this general 
decline appeared, in the dark days of utter despair, 

THE FENIANS. 

Yes, they came to the front equipped only with resolve, 
with a remarkable daring, but defective organization. Even 
though badly led, they frightened England into some nom- 
inal concessions which are useful only in making us under- 
stand what could be won from her (England), if the Feni- 
ans had been able to concentrate their scattered forces in 
the Southern or Western mountains ; and if they had not 
been cursed from almost every Catholic altar, and set to 
the English enemy by many (too many) Catholic clergymen. 
It puzzles an Irishman to account for the hostility of the 
Roman Catholic bishops (with one or two exceptions) to 
our Irish National Independence. I have read, and never 
shall forget, the able review which appeared in the mem- 
orable Irish World of May 15th, where you say: 

" If you are a priest, and are placed over an Irish con- 
gregation, and if you see any Fenians perverting the people 



48 "niall the grand." 

and saying that we, the Irish race in America, ought to do 
something for Ireland, fiercely denounce those bad men. 
Tell the people that the Irish ought to be loyal to England, 
even in persecutions. Tell them the Irish are persecuted 
in this world because they are good Christians. Tell them 
that those persecutions have proved wonderfully beneficial 
— that the expulsion of the mere Irish from their own 
homes, with their dispersion abroad, has brought the Mar- 
quis of Bute, the Earl of Ripon, and a score of gentlemen 
and superannuated countesses to the faith, (but of the mill- 
ions lost to the faith, the descendants of the mere Irish in 
England and America, you need not tell). Repeat these 
things again and again. Tell the people that they must not 
be too much troubled about the temporal interests of Ire- 
land — that patriotism is a deceptive sentiment — that this 
world anyhow, with all its vanity, will pass away ; and that 
therefore, as good Christians, they ought not to set their 
hearts upon it. This is the style of some priests and 
bishops. 11 

AGAINST IRISH FREEDOM. 

You have described most truly, sir, in the above passage, 
the proceedings and ecclesiastical policy of certain Catholic 
bishops and priests in America. To this accurate guage, I 
would, with your permission, supplement a few plain facts 
from the British government side of the question. To the 
really zealous Nationalists, who desire to get poor old Ire- 
land re-established a nation among the nations, no imped- 
iment is so distressing, so unaccountable, so hard to be 
dealt with as the opposition, which comes from the Roman 
Catholic hierarchy and many of the priesthood, to every 
thorough, every substantial effort to emancipate our dear 
country. Why this unnatural hatred of our freedom exists 
I cannot pretend to answer; but, that it does exist and is 
actively propagated, I am in a condition to prove. Having 
spent a winter in Rome lately, I have learned considerable 
of English manipulations — what the French call " en 
plusie^s manieres " — something concerning their round- 
about methods of manufacturing chains in Rome to man- 



"niall the grand." 49 

acle the Irish in Ireland. To explain how this is done, to 
the understanding of the common people — that is the toil- 
ing classes — I must ask liberal space in your precious col- 
umns. It had been the unconcealed desire of the govern- 
ing oligarchy of England — the landlords — for many years 
past, to get some control, little or much, in the appointment 
of the Catholic bishops of Ireland. In O'Connell's lifetime, 
during his struggle for 

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION, 

the proposal was made to him that if he would consent to 
give the English government this desired control, it would 
pave an easy way to his Catholic emancipation. That great 
measure was kept back for years, because he and the bulk 
of the Irish people refused to the English government this 
veto privilege, which would, if granted, compel all candi- 
dates for bishops 1 mitres in Ireland to have their names 
submitted to the British monarch, and be approved by that 
monarch, before their acceptance and consecration by the 
pope in Rome. A second wing of security, sought to be 
added to the emancipation act, was a state payment of 
annual salaries to the Irish Catholic clergy ; and a third, the 
abolition of the voting powers of the forty-shilling free- 
holders. The first two O'Connell rejected ; the last he 
agreed to, which disfranchised at least five hundred thou- 
sand voters in Ireland ; for consenting to which he was 
afterwards sorry enough. O'Connell emancipated the 
Catholics of Ireland, England and Scotland, and the Dis- 
senters also ; for which some of the said English are not 
over grateful. Emancipation would have been still refused 
but for fear of an Irish insurrection. This is admitted in 
Sir Robert Peel's Memoirs, and by the Duke of Wellington 
in his speech introducing the measure in the House of 
Lords. 

THE FENIAN MEN. 

Now came a new generation of Fenian men, who saw 
nothing more in Catholic Emancipation than a road opened 
to enable Mr. and Mr. and Mr. — to 



50 "niall the grand." 

enter parliament, make themselves heard there, get to be 
solicitors-general, attorneys-general, governors of colonies ; 
then assistant barristers, stipendiary magistrates ; then 
judges on the bench, and other offices of profit and honor, 
whereby they may dress in purple and fine linen, and sit in 
judgment, enabling the Irish landlords to dispossess the 
people of their lands according to law, while the millions of 
Catholics may go to the emigrant ship, to Hong Kong, or to 

the d 1 ! Now comes the Fenian agitation — an agitation 

somewhat different in its objects from the former. What 
could England do with that? It was, in the eyes of foreign 
powers, an ugly crack in the British breastplate, this Fenian 
cry for the land and for an Irish republic ! — a cry which 
O'Connell in his philosophy never dreamed of. Could she 
get Rome to do anything to stop it. Let us trace her tor- 
tuous policy in that city. 

FATHER CULLEN. 

About fifty-seven years ago, there came to Rome from 
Ireland a student for the priesthood, a son not of the peer- 
age but of the peasantry of Kildare, who has subsequently 
become a k ' personage " in the world. He entered the 
Irish College in Rome; and by his studious, careful and 
conservative habits, rose step by step to be superior of the 
college, whose average number of students ranged at about 
fifty ; whose course of education was pretty strictly con- 
fined to theology, and the histories, and the arguments 
springing therefrom. The position of superior of this Irish 
college the priest maintained for twenty years, in strict 
seclusion, which brought him the acquaintance of all the 
high dignitaries connected with the Sacred College of Car- 
dinals. This was Father Cullen, the Superior of the Irish 
College at Rome. I would next make the reader acquaint- 
ed with 

CARDINAL ANTONELLI, 

who has filled the post of Secretary to the College of Car- 
dinals — that is, Secretary of State to the Roman Catholic 
church throughout *the world — for at least thirty years past, 



"niall the grand." 51 

through whom all the correspondence of all the ecclesias- 
tics and crowned heads throughout the world passes to the 
Pope, is registered, noted, brought. under consideration of 
the Sacred Council, and replied to. Now, this great per- 
sonage, though filling the highest office in, the Catholic 
Church next to the Holy Father, is not a priest in orders, 
and never was. But he is a very able linguist, is master of 
a score of languages, is able to do with little sleep and little 
food, can answer more letters, and does answer more let- 
ters, in a day than do all the British Ministers in the same 
space of time. This extraordinary man was in youth a 
poor boy from the mountains, who got into one of the col- 
leges as a servant, and swallowed all sorts of knowledge 
with unusual gusto. His sheer ability of mind and body 
brought him under the notice of the predecessor of Pius 
IX., who placed him in the correspondence department of 
the Holy See, in which office he was continued by the 
present Pope ; and without passing through the graditory 
steps of the eglise, was endowed with the commanding 
title of Cardinal. The Cardinal-Secretary is the dispenser 
of dignities, appointments, places and power throughout 
the whole church. All, who want favors from the Holy 
See, from the crowned head ruler of a nation^ down to the 
humble cure or priest of a parish, present their suit to the 
Cardinal. It is the custom, of those who seek favors at his 
hand, to propitiate^him with some present. The very rich 
give jeweled snuff boxes or gems of vast value ; the poorer 
suitors bring coined gold to his shrine. His palace is, next 
to the Vatican, the richest magazine of gems, jewels and 
works of art ot great value in Rome. His Eminence's 
engaged daily in arranging and classifying his wondrous 
store, which (it is said by clergymen) would purchase a 
principality. Of course, such a man is a strict conservator 
of " order," hates changes, and is, indeed, the chief man 
that arrested the reforming hand of Pius IX., in 1846, when 
His Holiness had joined the father of King Victor Emanuel 
in his attempt to drive the Austrians from Italian soil. In 
his mind, the powers that be are the powers to obey, pro- 



52 "niall.the grand." 

vided those powers have in their veins any of the pure 
blood of kings. 

PETRE, THE ENGLISH AGENT. 

I would now introduce another important character in 
this painful story. There were in Rome twenty years ago, 
as there are at present, certain political agents of the Brit- 
ish Government — not open, recognized agents, mind you, 
but " tourists, 1 ' " artists," of the Sir Patrick O'Plenipo 
class, among whom was a young. Englishman, the Hon. 
Mr. Petre, son of Lord Petre, an English Catholic gentle- 
man who lived much in Rome ; for he was an ardent 
admirer and student of art. He was very intimate with 
Cardinal Antonelli and the other chief princes. To the 
Cardinal, the troubles of the English Government with the 
Irish revolutionary characters were made known. It was 
easily made manifest, to His Eminence, that revolutionary 
aspirations in Ireland would tend to ignite latent members 
of a similar nature in England, and elsewhere in Europe, 
and that, in the interests of "society" and "order," his 
aid was evoked to suppress, by the crushing power of the 
church, all such dangerous manifestations. The Irish bish- 
ops — aye, they were the springs of Irish sentiment, the 
channels, in tact, which must guide Irish thought in its flow 
— these were the keys to the heart of the Irish nation ; and 
in order to preserve the peace of Europe, they were to be 
influenced, even coerced, to suppress all " dangerous soci- 
eties" of whatsoever name or object in Ireland. 

BRITISH FRIENDSHIP IN RETURN. 

In return for His Eminence's interference, in the manner 
suggested, the Queen of England would become the active 
friend of the temporal power, and would discountenance 
and discourage, through her peers and commoners, and 
denounce, through all her magazines and newspapers, the 
Garibaldis and Mazzinis of Italian revolution. Nothing 
could be more reasonable and proper than all this to the 
minds of the Cardinal and his eminent brethren of the 



"niall the grand." 53 

Sacred College, the majority of whom are always of Italian 
birth, and know about as much of Irish, history as they do 
of one of the South American republics. So the Irish 
priesthood were to be muzzled ; the Lavelles, the McQuaids, 
the Andersons, the Vaughans and the MacHales were to be 
put under the ban, and all their seditious mouths to be 
closed. Although they are witnesses — aye, eye-witnesses of 
the destruction of thousands of Irish dwellings, the eviction 
from their lands of hundreds of thousands of industrious 
Roman Catholic people, they are forbidden to open their * 
mouths in complaint against landlords who promote or the 
government which permits these calamitous outrages. 

FATHER CULLEN RAISED TO POWER. 

A most fortunate opportunity arrived to put this British 
policy into active operation. Dr. Curtis, primate of Armagh, 
died, a successor was duly and legally named by a convoca- 
tion of the clergy of the diocese. Three names were voted 
for by the convention, according to immemorial usage, and 
sent on to Rome with their respective characters appended 
to each, viz : Dignus (worthy, Dignoir (worthier), Dignissi- 
mus (most worthy), from which three His Holiness was, 
according to custom, to select one to fill the chair of Pri- 
mate of Ireland. But instead of this, His Holiness, at the 
promptings and advice of somebody in Rome, passed over 
and ignored the three clergymen sent to him by the Irish 
Diocese Convention, and took a priest of the Irish College 
in Rome from his books and his pupils and his solitude in 
St. Agatha's, and appointed him 

ARCHBISHOP AND PRIMATE, 

and sent him to rule over the heads of all the clergy of 
Ireland. This gentleman was Dr. Paul Cullen, the cele- 
brated public enemy of the Fenians and the private friend 
of the British Empire. This appointment suited the British 
government completely. The new Irish Primate was the 
second self of Cardinal Antonelli. The "Church" was to 
get privileges, in all the British colonies where the Catholic 



54 "niall the grand." 

bishops and priests are stipendiaries of the British Govern- 
ment. The Bishops get from £500 to £700 a year ; the 
priests from £150 to £200 a year salaries, throughout the 
principal colonies of Her Majesty's empire. There are 
many other privileges also, which the "church" (that is 
the bishops) obtained as a consideration for yielding- up 
Ireland in chains to her relentless oppressor. 

CONDEMNS FRENCH ASSISTANCE. 

His first services to his new masters were performed by 
the new primate in the year 1859; and this is the manner 
and method of them. After the failure of the Young Ire- 
landers' attempt at insurrection, in 1848, many of the 
leaders were driven out of Ireland. Some were transported 
to the far off colonies ; some took refuge in New York, 
others in Paris, and some returned to their homes in obscu- 
rity, in the south of Ireland. Although the attempt at a 
rising was at the time suppressed, the aspiration for national 
independence was not stamped out. The signs most hope- 
ful of its ultimate success are found in the cool business- 
like manner in which the baffled, defeated Irish patriots go 
again to their work, as if nothing ill had happened to them 
in previous attempts ! Well, an organization was effected 
between the men in Ireland and their friends in Paris ami 
America, to make another attempt. The mode of the 
next move had not yet gotten shape. It was understood 
among the leaders, that the late Emperor of the French, 
Louis Napoleon, would favor the designs of the Irish 
"Phoenix men" — this being the appellation of the Irish 
patriots then. Napoleon had some negotiations on foot 
with England, touching the admission of French manufac- 
tures and French wines iulo England at a reduced duty, 
and the belter to help his negotiations, he built those fam- 
ous sea-monsters in Cherbourg, which created consterna- 
tion in England. But when he invited John Mitchell from 
America to Paris, this was the climax. All England was in 
a panic. The funds fell in price, when it was known that 
Mitchell had actually come to Paris. It was then that 



"niall the grand.' 1 55 

Archbishop Cullen was wanted by the British Government, 
and speedily he came to their aid. In the nick of time he 
issued his celebrated " Pastoral " to the priests and people 
of Ireland, warning them against " French infidels," 
French " anarchists," and all that, saying to his flock, ex 
cathedra, that " he would rather see the Irish people suffer 
another seven years' famine than accept aid or political 
association from the infidel French !" and this, mind you, 
at the very time that Cardinal Antonelli had twenty thous- 
and French soldiers in Rome and its suburbs, supporting 
the kingly power of the Pope ! The French Emperor was 
stunned by the appearance of this remarkable pastoral, and 
feeling that to help the Irish in an insurrection against Eng- 
land, with the Catholic clergy against it, would be disas- 
trous to the design, he got chilled over the enterprise. In 
addition to his motives for holding back, Her Majesty, the 
Queen of England, journeyed over to France to meet the 
Emperor, and did meet him, and kiss him too! The kiss 
of a queen has, we know, a wondrous power. Even Julius 
Caesar, stern though he was known to be, was melted by 
the kiss of Cleopatra. Our queen, it is true, is not a Cle- 
opatra ; yet her kiss, together with the Archbishop's 
pastoral and the concessions to the Emperor of his inter- 
national dem'ands killed, for the time, in its embryonic state, 
the Phoenix insurrection. The pastorals of the Archbish- 
ops, at that time, had much greater weight and influence 
with the Irish than they have had latterly. 

THE MACMANUS FUNERAL. 

I will now advance in my mournful story. Terrence 
Bellew MacManus died in San Francisco sometime in the 
year 1861 — died in care of the Sisters of Mercy, in their 
hospital, having previously received the last sacrament of 
his church. The Irish of that city gave him a splendid 
funeral, laid him in the Catholic cemetery of Lone Moun- 
tain. A meeting was subsequently held in San Francisco, 
to erect a monument over his remains, at which meeting it 
was proposed, and, after some discussion, resolved to raise 



56 "niall the grand/' 

the body and send it to Ireland for interment. It was to 
be taken to New York, where the Irish were to co-operate 
in taking charge of the body, and thence to Cork, where, 
on landing, the Cork men were to organize a slow funeral 
procession by the high road trom Cork to Dublin, to pause 
at intervals in the journey, and have orations pronounced 
over the dead rebel. That was the programme ; and it 
was pretty nearly carried out. These honors were offered 
to MacManus because, though no general, he bravely joined 
Smith O'Brien and the others in facing British power in the 
field; and here it must be noted that Smith O'Brien was 
totally unfitted, by nature or experience, to lead an armed 
insurrection against England, as was very quickly perceived 
by the common people in the South of Ireland, who de- 
clined to fight when they heard him proclaim that the 
army of insurrection was to purchase their rations with 
hard cash. But he was honored, nevertheless, and so were 
MacManus and Meagher, because they had risked life and 
were tried and condemned to death in Clonmel, to be there 
hanged, drawn and quartered for their attempt to free 
Ireland. 

THE IRISH RACE IN AMERICA 

and in Ireland had unanimously decreed funeral honors to 
the remains of MacManus. The body was received in the 
cathedrals b} 7 bishops, and a solemn mass for the dead 
was offered for the repose of the soul of him who risked 
life, liberty and lost trade and position for Ireland. When 
the body arrived on Irish earth, it was taken to the Catholic 
chapel in Queenstown, where it was received by Doctor 
Keene, at the chapel door, and there again a solemn sacri- 
fice of Holy mass for the dead was offered over the body. 
At every station between Cork and Dublin crowds of people 
appeared, anxious to take the body out of the railway car- 
riages and carry it on their shoulders, according to the 
original programme, which, I must say, they ought to have 
been permitted to do. Arrived in Dublin, thousands and 
tens of thousands were ready to take part in the great 



"mall the grand." 57 

national funeral : but first, application was made to Arch- 
bishop Cullen, (who at this time had been translated from 
Armagh to Dublin,) to offer a- solemn mass for the dead 
over the body, at his cathedral, Marlborough street. To 
this very natural request, the Archbishop replied that he 
required twenty-four hour's consideration, before he could 
give an answer. "Twenty-four hours 1 consideration' 1 to 
study whether an Irish # Catholic child of the church, who 
died in its bosom in a foreign land, should obtain through 
the united prayers of his ten thousand friends, the benefits 
of their united prayers at holy mass, for the repose of his 
soul. The American conductors of the funeral 'soon saw 
through the mind of the Archbishop, and rightly read the 
excuse of the pro-English ecclesiastic, which was that " the 
funeral bore a political aspect, and he did not desire that he 
and the church should be mixed .up with it," whereupon 

FATHER LAVELLE 

issued his famous address, beginning : " Ireland ! Ireland ! 
has it come to this?" etc. The body of MacManus was 
taken to its resting place in Glasnevin ; the layman from 
San Francisco, in charge of it, a Colonel Smith, uttered a 
discourse over it; and Father Lavelle made the last prayer 
over the body as it was lowered down, which, it is hoped, 
was heard in Heaven's chancery. Father Lavelle was sum- 
moned to Rome, to account there for his contumacious 
comments on the Archbishop, on the occasion, and would 
doubtless have been imprisoned, but for the interference of 
JOHN MagHALE, the great Archbishop of the West; but 
the tongue of Father Lavelle, in all that relates to the polit- 
ical! interests of Ireland, has been considerably lied ever 
since. The next link in this mysterious story is furnished 
by the seizure of the Irish People newspaper and the 
imprisonment of all the gentlemen connected with it, on 
the information of Nagle, the informer. Rossa, Luby, 
O'Leary and several others were indicted for treason-felony 
and about to take their trial when, the very week before 
the trial was to take place, out comes a pastoral from Arch- 



58 "niall the grand." 

bishop Culleri, in the Freeman's Journal, denouncing the 
untried prisoners as "revolutionists," "anarchists," "assas- 
sins," " infidels — men who would rob people of their prop- 
erty, and murder clergymen if they stood in their way !" 
This denunciation had the desired effect ; it poisoned and 
excited to panic the minds of all that middle class of citi-_ 
zens from which juries would be formed and made up. 
These prisoners were tried and condemned in the public 
press, by the Irish Roman Catholic Archbishop, before they 
were arraigned by the law-officers of England, in their 
courts of law in Ireland ! The chances for the prisoners, 
from a disagreement among the jury, were cut away, and 
their conviction rendered easy and certain by the early 
verdict pronounced on them by the head of the Catholic 
Church in Dublin! They were convicted of a "conspi- 
racy," and we all know how and what they suffered in the 
terrible dungeons of England, and how the Catholic bishop 
of Kerry, Moriarity, came out at the back of Dr. Gullen, 
proclaiming that " Hell was not hot enough " nor eternity 
long enough to punish these awful Fenian " infidels " 
"and "cut-throats." The English "interest" in Rome, 
grateful for the valuable help of the Archbishop in stamp- 
ing out Fenianism in Ireland, now contributed to lift the 
useful Archbishop in rank over all the bishops, archbishops 
and priests of Ireland. Cardinal Antonelli is again invoked, 
and at last out of the Vatican comes a Cardinal's hat, with 
robes of princely state, for Dr. Cullen, which gave him 
rank and command and authority over every priest, bishop 
and archbishop in Ireland, MacHale included. Here, again, 
the "fine. Roman hand" of England is apparent. The 
Cardinaljiad thenceforth given him power to suspend any 
one of the hierarchy or priesthood for disobedience of his 
commands — and this without appeal to Rome ! 

THE FENIANS IN THE FIELD. 

The Fenian organization was not, however, extinguished, 
either by the Cardinal's denunciations or by the state 
trials, or the tortures in the British dungeons: Although 



"niall the GRAND." 59 

the tortures of hell were considered by His Eminence inad- 
equate punishment for those Fenians ; yet they went madly 
on all the same. Eighteen hundred and sixty-seven came, 
and with it an actual outbreak, mismanaged again, but. suffi- 
ciently frightful to the English powers to displace a Tory 
ministry and lift to power a " reform " government, whose 
platform cries were ''Justice to Ireland," "Ireland to be 
governed by Irish ideas," "tenant-right," and "equality in 
religion," and so on. This was a delusive platform, intend- 
ed only to cajole the Fenians, who in the meantime were 
to be put ouside the pale of the church— were to be excom- 
municated — were to be refused all the sacraments of the 
church, living or dying, including the sacrament of matri- 
mony ; and this by an Irish bishop, an Irish cardinal, who 
was the son of an Irish tenant-farmer, robed in frieze and 
corduroy ! When the great assembly of bishops was held 
n Rome, sometime in 1867, a movement was made in a 
certain chamber, in that city, between His Eminence Cullen 
and His Eminence Cardinal Antonelli and some other Card- 
jinals, to get up a decree of condemnation against the 
Fenian Brotherhood. No sooner thought of by these Emi- 
nent princes of the Church than it was done. A bull or 
decree was accordingly passed through the Sacred College, 
condemning the Fenian Brotherhood as "a society danger- 
ous to faith and morals," (a brief and convenient indict- 
ment) being bound by secret oaths, etc., etc., members of 
said organization to be refused all the sacraments until they 
withdrew from it; and so far as Cardinal Cullen could influ- 
ence the clergy in Ireland, England and Scotland, this con- 
demnation was carried generally into effect, as we shall 
see. There were many of the American bishops in Fionie 
at that time, who, when they heard of this decree, were 
half crazy with rage regarding it, and wrote to their priests 
in America, restraining them from putting this decree in 
force until their return. Worse still, when the Catholic 
mother of Thomas Clarke Luby lay on her death bed, 
while her son was yet in prison for only writing in behalf 
of Irish independence, the rites and sacraments of her 



•60 "niall the grand." 

church were refused her on his account, and her body was 
refused sepulture in the Catholic cemetery if any persons 
attending her remains to the grave wore green symbols of 
any kind upon their persons ; and the same sort of 

PERSECUTIONS OF THE NATIONAL COLOR 
was displayed at the great funeral of Edward Duffy to the 
same last resting place. To show the world how skillfully 
His Eminence exercises and extends his anti-Irish ideas 
through Ireland, in the interest of his English clients, let us 
contemplate the manner in which he filled up the vacancy 
in the See of Ossory. A chapter of the clergy of the dio- 
cese was held as usual. Three names were sent to Rome ; 
one of these names was that of Father Moran, the Cardi- 
nal's private secretary and relative, a priest not in any 
manner connected with the diocese — an outsider, so to say. 
•His Eminence had influence enough to get his secretary 
nominated by the Ossory convocation, whether as worthy, 
worthier or most worthy, none can tell ; but all can see 
that Father Moran obtained the appointment in Rome. 
And it is pretty evident that this partial nomination pro- 
duced the lamentable rupture between the Cardinal and 
Father O'Keefe. Each had a relative and favorite to can- 
vass for. Now, His Eminence has. drawn in as his secretary 
another clergyman, who will be, of course, a postulant for 
the next mitre that falls: and so on, step by step, by this 
method, the Irish-Catholic church and its faithful soggarths 
are to be West-Britonized. 

"FELON-SETTINC." 1 

To show that this process of hunting down the Fenians 
has been undertaken by the Catholic Bishops, in conjunc- 
tion with the British police, I will adduce a few indisputable 
facts to show that those who labored for the independence 
of their native Ireland, and associate for that object, no 
matter under what name, are to be hunted as assassins, 
robbers, murderers, infidels, communists, socialists, etc., 
and this not only by the British oligarchy, its press, its 
police, but by their own trusted bishops and their clergy 



"niall the grand." 61 

(always with the illustrious exceptions such as the incor- 
ruptible MacHale). There was an election to be held in 
the County Longford, in 1869. John Martin was candidate. 
On the 3d of December, the Most Rev. N. MacCabe, Bishop 
of Longford, writing from Rome, thus spoke to his fifty 
priests of the Longford diocese, in a letter addressed to 
Rev. J. Smyth : 

"As young Greville is the choice of the priests, I rely on 
the united efforts of priest and people to ensure his return., 
I have great fears lest Fenianism should get a footing in the 
diocese." Signed with the holy sign of the cross, by N. 
MacCabe. (f) 

JOHN MARTIN DEFEATED. 

John Martin was surely the mildest type of a Fenian, or 
any other man, that Ireland could produce. This Most 
Reverend letter-writer, however, prefers " young Greville," 
a captain in the British army and a lord of the Queen of 
England's bedchamber (whatever that may mean) to honest 
John Martin, whose life, labor, talents and fortune had been 
devoted ceaselessly to the elevation of his country. John 
Martin, notwithstanding his life-long services to Ireland, 
was defeated — defeated in a manner that will forever reflect 
disgrace upon this bishop and upon the clergymen who 
made themselves prominent leaders in the cause of the 
young English place-holder. At Edgeworthstown, in the 
County Longford, the friends of John Martin were gathered 
to a meeting ; a procession was formed and in motion to a 
central point, where a large meeting of the voters was 
about to be held. They had banners and symbols ; amongst 
them was a small green banner ; and upon this hated ban- 
ner the Rev. Father Murray — " soggarth aroon " of that 
parish — rushed with violent gestures, and dragging the 
National Flag from the hands of him who bore it, trampled 
it in the mud, and then waved a red pocket-handkerchief 
over his head ! 

LIFTING THE CROSS FOR ENGLAND. 

Before this saddening event, the clergy of Longford, with 



62 "niall the grand." 

Father Reynolds at their head, had met at St. Mel's College 
to take steps respecting' the Longford election. Thirty 
priests were present there. They raised the holy cross at 
that meeting, and pledged the cross and their faith and 
honor to vote for " young Greville," the English captain, 
the officer of the Queen's household, and the true repre- 
sentative of England in the British parliament. The 
aforesaid captain, subsequent to this meeting, placed £3,000 
in the hands of the aforesaid soggarth Reynolds, to be used 
as his reverence pleased in defeating the chances of Irish 
independence, to which the election of honest John Martin 
might in some sense contribute. 

THE COUNTY DRENCHED WITH WHISKY. 
The money was distributed among those persons in the 
county who too well acted the ruffian part in that contest. 
Kegs of whisky and barrels of porter were let loose in 
every direction, and distributed, with the object of exciting 
the inflammable portion of these people to turn on their 
fellow- citizens (fellow -slaves), to drive out, to bludgeon out 
and to stamp out " accursed Fenianism," according to their 
orders. " The country was drenched with whisky," said 
Baron Fitzgerald, who, on solemn investigation, declared 
the election of the English captain void. The priests were 
disgraced ; their religion suspected ; and Ireland hung down 
her head. Looking outside of Ireland, we shall see what 
useful allies of England too often are our Irish Catholic 
priests. We shall see how enthusiastically they uphold 
the government of England in Ireland. 

ALLIES IN AUSTRALIA 

About the month of October, 1869, fifteen Fenian pris- 
oners were released from penal servitude in Sydney, South 
Wales, by orders from Mr. Gladstone's Government. The 
Irishmen of Sydney offered these poor fellows some com- 
plimentary benefit, with a view to make up a little money 
to start them to some free land " where the flag of Eng- 
land would never more be seen." A pic-nic to a suburb of 
Sidney named Clontarf was proposed. But this must not 



"niall the grand. 1 ' 63 

be. The two chief Catholic priests of Sydney (the bishop 
being then at Rome), the Very Rev. S. J. A. Sheehy, V. G., 
and the Very Rev. John Rigney, V. G., both Irishmen,) 
published an injunction from the altars of all the Catholic 
churches in Sydney, on Sunday, November 18th, 1869, 
warning and commanding all Catholics to abstain from 
attending said pic-nic. The British government in Sydney 
issued also a proclamation against the holding of the meet- 
ing; but these Sydney Irishmen were not to be frightened. 
To the clergy, the pic-nic committee thus replied : 

" We emphatically and earnestly repudiate the dictation 
of the Very Reverend gentlemen above, as to our meeting, 
which bears no religious aspect, and concerns only our 
rights as citizens. 

[Signed] Richard O'Sullivan,- 

T. O'Neil, 
B. Gaffray, 
John Spevin. 11 
The aforesaid document will prove the existence of a 
semi-concordat between England and Rome, which oper- 
ates tar and wide, especially in the English colonies, in 
almost all of which the Catholic clergy are stipendiaries of 
the government of England. 

WHO BR'OKE DOWN THE BRITISH CHURCH? 

We will now take a second look at its operations nearer 
home. In the month of December, 1869, His Eminence 
Cardinal Cullen issued a pastoral, again condemning the 
Fenians, asking " What has their agitation and conspiracy 
produced? 11 He asked this question with wondrous sim- 
plicity, when it was patent, and avowed by Mr. Gladstone, 
Prime Minister of England, in his place in Parliament, that 
to " allay the Fenian excitement he had brought in his 
Church Bill and Land Bill " — when every newspaper in 
England that supported Gladstone argued that u the dis- 
turbed state of Ireland, 1 ' the " Fenian conspiracy, 11 required 
of the British parliament full and ample justice to allay : 
and John Bright, the popular member of Mr. Gladstone^ 



64 "niall the crand." 

ministry, publicly declared at Birmingham, January 13th, 
1870 : " They would have a new invasion of Ireland with 
good laws ; he will astonish Ireland herself with their land 
bill — one which would give the cultivators a hold of the 
land which they tilled, and take away all cause for Irish 
discontent and insurrection. 1 ' However, this land bill was 
and is the greatest kind of a delusion, as the experience of 
a few short years demonstrates — witness the evictions now 
going on all over Ireland and the subsequent discontent 
and the " insurrection " which laid the Protestant estab- 
lishment in ruins, overturned a Tory ministry and set up 
he Gladstone party, and not the countless intercourse with 
government of His Eminence Cardinal Cullen ; and no 
good measure will ever be gotten from England, except 
through a " disturbance " in Ireland. 

THE CARDINAL'S INFLUENCE. 

The active operations of His Eminence, Cardinal Cullen, 
in support of British power in Ireland are very remarkable. 
Every available bishop and priest in Ireland, England and 
Scotland has been seen or written to, or deputationed. Let 
us contemplate the evidence to this assertion. In Kerry, 
Bishop Moriarity has publicly uttered the blasphemy that 
" Hell is not hot enough nor eternity long enough to suffi- 
ciently punish the Fenians." That blasphemy was uttered 
some fifteen years ago, and the reverend utterer is not 
gone to* h — . He performs all the sacred functions of a 
Christian priest in Kerry to this day. In May, 1870, two 
town councillors of Limerick waited on the acting bishop of 
the diocese, Dr. Butler, at his palace in the city of Limerick 
to ask his permission to make a collection at the chapel 
gates, on a given day, for the families of the Fenian state 
prisoners. This was refused ; no Irish Fenians need apply. 
Archdeacon Sullivan, of Kenmare, writing to the Dublin 
Nation, April 15, 1871, boasts that in 1858 he extracted 
the Phoenix revolutionary oath from one of his postulant 
flock by a device which seems to the reverend gentleman 
to be satisfactory to his sacerdotal conscience. Catholic 



"niall the grand. 1 ' 65 

clergy are bound by their vows not to reveal anything com- 
municated to them in the confessional. A young man had 
made his confession to the reverend gentleman, in the 
course of which he said nc was a member of the Phoenix 
Society, and that its object was the independence of Ire- 
land by armed insurrection. Being questioned concerning 
the rules of the society, he said the members were bound 
by oath to secrecy and obedience to their chiefs. After the 
interview at the confessional, the reverend gentleman took 
occasion to meet the young man in the street, and accost- 
ing the young man as if he, the priest, had apparently for- 
gotten something connected with the confession, said : u By 
the by, what was the nature of that oath which you men- 
tioned something about to me the other clay'? 1 ' The young 
man, thinking that he was still talking to his priest under 
the seal of the confessional, related to him, in the street, 
the nature of the Phoenix oath, which bound the members 
to fight for the death for Irish independence. The archdea- 
con, having now got out the secret in the street, sheltering 
his conscience by this arch device, hastened to communi- 
cate it to Dublin Castle, and actually boasted publicly that 
he had got there with the information before " old Trench, 1 ' 
the magistrate ; whereby the felon-setting priest " did " the 
felon-setting magistrate ! In the well-known rising of 1867, 
young Colonel O'Connor, an Irish-American officer from 
Massachusetts, got into the southern part of Kerry, where 
he had rapidly organized an insurrectionary force, and was 
proceeding to form a junction with another body of the 
same kind, in a place somewhat distant. About this in- 
tended move, the Catholic priest of the district got wind, 
and was the first person to send a dispatch to the Govern- 
ment authorities respecting the intended move of the rebel 
colonel, which frustrated his plans. The name of this rev- 
erend gentleman I have forgotten ; but he is known to 
many persons in Tralee, and particularly to Colonel O'Con- 
nor, who got 'back safely to America when all hope was 
lost. 



66 "niall the crand. 

THE ENGLISH CLERGY. 

The Catholic clergy of England and Scotland, all the 
way up to and including Cardinal Manning, are dead 
against Ireland's independence — against all who preach 
such "revolutionary" doctrines. The clergy, officiating in 
general, take their cue from the bishops; and the English 
and Scotch bishops will not hear with patience a word in 
favor of Irish independence — will not allow any school 
under their control, though built, as their churches have 
mostly been, by the money of Irishmen, to be used for the 
purpose of talking even about that moderate, harmless 
myth known by the name of " Home Rule." Behold 
proof! At the Catholic chapel of Middleboro, in England, 
the Rev. Andrew Burns preached a sermon in May, 1870, 
in which he denounced the Fenians. On this occasion, 
some twenty or thirty of his hearers rose up and left the 
chapel. But the reverend gentleman went further in his 
denunciations than in the sermon in the chapel. He wrote 
a letter to the superintendent of the government works, 
where those who left the chapel were employed, gave their 
names, and denounced them as incendiaries, and unfit to 
be employed by the Government ; and gave to the govern- 
ment the names of the chiefs of circles who were in their 
employment. Mr. John Booth, of that village, was specially 
denounced, though he had been all his life the most active 
Catholic in the parish for helping the church ; and further, 
this Rev. Andrew Burns would not allow Booth's daughter 
to stand baptismal sponsor for a child which he was about 
to christen, because she had been to one of Mr. Meany's 
lectures, in the town hall, on Irish independence ! At 
Bradford, in the same week, the Rev. Father Lacey de- 
nounced from the altar all Fenians as incendiaries, " infi- 
dels," " anarchists." 

DENOUNCES THE PRESS. 

He also denounced all those who read the Irishman or 
Flag of Ireland, describing their editors as " Protestant 
Catb^cs." At Newcastle-on-Tyne, Father Perrin de- 



"null the grand. 67 

nounced from the altar (during Mass, on January 15th, 
1871), all those who sympathized with, or in any manner 
co-operated with the Fenian societies. He also denounced 
all those who sold, circulated or read the Irishman or Flag 
of Ireland. In Aberdeen, Father William Staganini 
preached from the altar (on Sunday, January 15th, 1871), 
to the congregation, on the evils of Fenianism, saying he 
" quite agreed with Bishop Moriarity that hell was hot hot 
enough, nor eternity long enough for the punishment of the 
Fenians." He denounced to the government the members 
of that society in Aberdeen, threatened all such with 
excommunication from the church, the refusal of sacra- 
ments, etc. In York, (on January 8th, 1871, at holy mass, 
the Rev. Father Holland denounced the Fenians with the 
pains of hell, using and endorsing the blasphemies of 
Bishop Moriarity as to the insufficiency of hell and eternity 
to punish the Fenians. " There were," he said, " now 
residing in York certain captains and leaders of the Fenians 
whom he was enabled to point out, and whom he would 
point out to the authorities and have arrested." After the 
execution of the " Manchester Martyrs," this reverend gen- 
tleman said in the church, in the course of his sermon, that 
those " martyrs very well 

DESERVED THE DEATH THEY MET WITH, 

and, if any of the congregation sympathized with them, he 
requested them to get up and leave the church," which 
many of them did. Bishop Ullathorne of Salford inter- 
posed to prevent the "Irish Home Rule League" holding 
any of their meetings in the school-rooms which their Irish 
money had erected, thus driving them to the public houses. 
The Catholic bishop and priesthood of Glasgow interposed 
in like manner, prohibiting their school rooms to be used 
for any Irish meeting connected with the political elevation 
of Ireland. The Irishmen, in all those crowded places, have 
therefore no place to meet in but the public houses. The 
same rule prevails in London. We dare not open our 
mouths about Ireland's freedom in any of the schools 



68 "niall the grand." 

attached to the Catholic churches, though those same 
churches and those same schools would not be in existence 
but for the Irish laborers of London. At the great Patrick's 
day demonstration in Hyde Park, last March, the Catholic 
clergymen refused to the Irish the use of their temperance 
flags for the procession. Turn which way we will, we see 
the hands of Catholic clerics raised against the political 
enfranchisement of our country. The Irishman and Flag, 
which uphold the right of Ireland, are excluded from the 
reading rooms of the " Catholic Union of Ireland," whilst 
the London Times and London Punch are taken in by that 
most exemplary society! 

MORAL IN CONCLUSION. 
The reader, if he have had the patience to wade through 
this sad history, will find in it indubitable evidence of a 
compact between the British Government and certain influ- 
ential dignitaries of the Roman Catholic church, in Rome 
and Ireland, to stamp out of the Irish heart any and every 
aspiration for honest national government. For this pur- 
pose was the Bull against the Fenians procured at Rome : 
for this purpose were they excommunicated from the altars 
of their churches, charged with defiling with their dead the 
Catholic cemeteries; their immortal souls judged — aye, 
judged by mortal men — and consigned to hell (with delib- 
erate and repeated blasphemy) which it seems was not hot 
enough for their punishment. The British Government, 
taking its cue from our Cullens, our Moriaritys and our 
MacCabes, inflicted indescribable tortures upon the unfor- 
tunate Fenians whom they had gotten into their grasp, 
making them pretty nearly feel hell in their infernal dun- 
geons. This was a new departure in the traditions and 
practice of the church. We never, before heard of Roman 
bulls issued against Irish patriots who struggled for the 
object the Fenians had and have in view. In 1798 Catholic 
priests fought in the ranks of the " Irish rebels." Father 
Murphy, of Wexford, the rebel general and priest, will 
never be blotted from the grateful memory of. Irishmen; 



"niall the grand." 69 

and I might go further back, oven to the times of the Kil- 
kenny Confederation, 1640, when we find 

POPE URBAN VIII 
sending arms, ammunition and money, by his Nuncio 
Renuncinni, in the frigate San Pietro, for the Irish Fenians 
of that day, who had confederated to drive the English gar- 
rison out of Ireland. We allege that this latter policy of 
the Cullens, the Moriaritys and the rest is a departure from 
the customs and traditions of the Catholic church — a 
wrenching of our holy religion to the purposes of British 
ascendancy — British tyranny — in our country — that the 
" infidels " they speak of have been made, not by Paine 
and Voltaire, but by those clergymen who cursed the 
Fenians from their pulpits, refused them sacraments at their 
altars, hunted them out of their churches, and marked 
them out to the police for incarceration. We further say 
that it has failed in its object. The whole policy and motion 
and labors of the aforesaid crusaders against the Fenians 
have shaken the confidence of the Irish people — Fenians 
and non-Fenians — in their clergy. A terrible result ; and 
a heavy burden of sin on the heads of those who destroyed 
this confidence. 

MacHALE FORETOLD IT. 

The great patriotic priest Archbishop MacHale foretold 
this. Fie told these political bishops that " If ever the Irish 
people shall withdraw their confidence from their clergy, 
the fault will not be the people's " and it is now verified, as 
I shall here prove in a few more lines. In the debate in 
the House of Lords on the Westmeath Coercion Bill, on 
May 2d, 1871, it came out that Captain Talbot, a chief of 
the Irish constabulary, gave the Westmeath committee, as 
a reason for his want of success in capturing Ribbonmen 
and Fenians "that the Catholic clergy are now-a-days told 
nothing by the people." One priest said to him : " Some- 
time ago I might have helped you hunt up a criminal ; but 
now the people do not let us know anything of their move- 
ments." 



70 "niall the grand." 

'WANING INFLUENCE IN ELECTIONS. 
Take the recent elections as evidence to the same pur- 
port. Let the reader go with me, in memory, to the court- 
house of Trim, in the county Meath, on a cold day in Jan- 
uary, three winters ago. There is an election for a member 
of Parliament. The building is crowded with the candi- 
dates and their friends. One side to be proposed is Hon. 
J. Plunkett, son of Lord Fingal, a scion of the oldest Catho- 
lic family in Ireland, a son of the Lord Killean that was for 
many years the fellow-laborer of Daniel O'Connell — the 
best of Irish landlords, a resident Irish gentleman and all 
that. He had pledged himself to the Catholic priesthood 
to oppose Gladstone if he declined to interfere to restore the 
Pope to the temporal sovereignty over Rome. At his back 
are Father Dowling and thirty Catholic priests of the county 
Meath. Father Dowling rises to propose the Hon. J. 
Plunkett, as a fit and proper person to represent the county 
of Meath in the Imperial Parliament of England. The 
priests speech is stopped by the outburst of popular inter- 
ruption which continued for an hour; and neither Father 
Dowling nor the Hon. Mr. Plunkett nor any one of the 
thirty Catholic clergymen was permitted to utter a wcrd in 
that court-house, though it was filled chiefly by Roman 
Catholics. And now, when the High Sheriff asks for 
" silence, 1 ' and demands to know if any other candidate is 
to be proposed, up stands a peasant farmer and 

NOMINATES JOHN MARTIN, 

our late distinguished countryman, as a fit and proper per- 
son to represent that great county in parliament — John 
Martin, who was not a Catholic but a frigid Presbyterian, 
who owned no land in the county — a convicted, trans- 
ported, unrepentant "Irish rebel," who had just come 
down from Dublin, after unveiling the statue erected there, 
in the public thoroughfare, to William Smith O'Brien, 
another convicted rebel. What cheering then welcomed 
the name of John Martin in that court-house ! What do 
those cheers for Martin tell us ? " What are those wild 



"niall the grand." 71 

waves saying?"' Who is that audacious peasant who ven- 
tures his voice in the presence of and in opposition to the 
wealth of the land and the power of the priests ? He must 

have the impudence of William Tell. This peasant 

farmer is a genuine Irish patriot. The show of hands is 
called for. It is for Martin and Ireland's independence, and 
at the polls, next day, the voters roll up 1,200 votes for 
Martin, against 650 for the landlords and the clergy! Now 
that election demonstrated the mind of a large Catholic 
county. Those twelve hundred voters were not surely all 
infidels, nor assassins, nor robbers, nor Fenians ; and yet 
they voted for Irish independence all the same, and in utter 
defiance too of their landlords and their clergy. It demon- 
strates that all the tortuous movements of the anti-Irish in 
Rome, in London and in Ireland have gone for nought; and, 
as the London Times remarked at that time, " Cardinal 
Cullen's occupation at Dublin castle is going, quite gone !" 
And 

THIS IS GOD'S TRUTH, 
though uttered by the Times. The county Limerick elec- 
tion is another case in point. On the dissolution of the 
last parliament by Mr. Gladstone, the Catholic clergy of 
Limerick met — eighty priests with their bishop, Dr. Butler, 
and their political mentor, Dean O'Brien. They solemnly 
proposed a Mr. Kelley, a Catholic landlord of the county, 
whose family had evicted some tenants from their lands. 
The Fenians proposed one of their society, who had served 
his due time for that cause in British dungeons, — that was 
his qualification in the eyes of the people of the great 
county Limerick — and they elected him against the active 
opposition of the eighty Catholic priests, the bishop, the 
dean and all the landlords and "respectables" of the 
county, three to one ! Then there is 

THE ELECTION OF JOHN MITCHELL, 
a Protestant, a rebel, a Fenian, and even more — elected 
unanimously by the great Catholic county of Tipperary. If 
these signs and modern instances of the spirit of the Irish 



72 "niall the grand." 

race' are not a sufficient reproof of the clerical crusades 
against their freedom, more will be exhibited from day to 
day, notwithstanding all the petty efforts that have been 
made in Ireland to suppress the pulsations of the national 
heart ; notwithstanding that only one bishop in Ireland — 
Most Rev. Thomas Nulty, of Meath — had the patriotism 
and gratitude to attend the MacHale jubilee ; notwithstand- 
ing that the students of Maynooth College are forbidden to 
present him an address : notwithstanding that Cardinal 
Cullen took himself off to Rome during the MacHale festi- 
val, thereby showing the petty spirit that moves him — not- 
withstanding all this, I say, the Irish heart beats a healthy 
beat for Irish Independence. 

CONCLUSION IN SORROW. 

This history of stupidity is written, not in malice or in a 

spirit of irreligion, but in sorrow. The writer hereof and 

the cardinals and the bishops will ere long be gathered to 

their native earth. Ireland will remain; her cause will 

remain and flourish, and triumph, for 

" Many a deed shall wake in praise 
That long hath slept in blame." 

This narrative will form a brick in the great structure of 
Irish history. It may warn fnture chiefs of the Catholic 
church against taking sides against their country, and ad- 
monish them that their faith cannot be strained and 
wrenched against the independence of their country with- 
out sore injury to the faith as well as to the country. 

N. T. G. 



"NULL THE GRAND. 

THE BULL OF ADRIAN IV. 



" Adrian, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his 
dearest son in Christ, the illustrious King of England 
greeting and apostolical benedictions : 

" Full laudably and profitably hath your magnificence con- 
ceived the design of propagating your glorious renown on 
earth, and completing your reward of eternal happiness in 
heaven ; while, as a Catholic prince, you are intent on 
enlarging the borders of the Church, teaching the truth of 
the Christian faith to the ignorant and rude, extirpating the 
roots of vice from the fields of the Lord; and, for the more 
convenient execution of this purpose, requiring the counsel 
and favor of the apostolic see, in which, the maturer your 
deliberation and the greater the discretion of your proced- 
ure, by so much the happier we trust will be your progress, 
with the assistance of the Lord, as all things are used to 
come to a prosperous end and issue, which take their 
beginning from the ardor of faith and the love of religion. 

"There is indeed no doubt but that England and all the 
islands on which Christ, the Sun of Righteousness hath 
shone, and which have received the doctrine of the Christ- 
ian faith, do belong to the jurisdiction ot St. Peter and the 
holy Roman church, as your excellency also doth acknowl- 
edge ; and, therefore, we are the more solicitous to propa- 
gate the righteous plantation of faith in this land, and the 
branch acceptable to God, as we have the secret conviction 
ot conscience that this is more especially our bounden 
duty. You, then, my dear son in Christ, have signified to 
us your desire to enter into the island of Ireland, in order 
to reduce the island to obedience under the laws, and to 
extirpate the plants of vice ; and that you are willing to 
pay from each a yearly pension of one penny to St. Peter, 
and that you will preserve the rights of the churches of this 
land whole and inviolate. We, therefore, with that grace 



74 "niall the grand." 

and acceptance suited to your pious and laudable design, 
and favorably assenting to your petition, do hold it good 
and acceptable that, for extending the borders of the 
Church, restraining the progress of vice, for the correction 
of manners, the planting of virtue and the increase of relig- 
ion, you enter the island, and execute therein whatever 
shall pertain to the honor of God and welfare of the land ; 
and that the people of this land receive you honorably, and 
reverence you as their lord, the rights of their churches still 
remaining sacred and inviolate and saving to St. Peter the 
annual pension of one penny from every house. 

" If then you be resolved to carry the design you have 
conceived into effectual execution, study to form this nation 
to virtue and manners, and labor by yourself and others 
you shall judge meet for this work, in faith, word and life, 
that the Church may be there adorned, that the religion of 
the Christian faith may be planted and grow up, and that 
salvation of souls be so ordered, that you may be en- 
titled to the fullness of heavenly reward from God, and ob- 
tain a glorious renown on earth throughout all ages. Given 
at Rome in the year of salvation, 1166. 11 

(O'Halloran Hist, of Ireland, page 305.) 

England has always acted from self-interest. She has at 
all times endeavored rather to change the mode of persecu- 
tion than to desist from worrying her victim. * * Ireland, 
rich in soil and blooming in culture, was made a prey to 
every species of tyrany and despotism, until her fertile plains 
resembled a charnel house from the executioner. * * In 
short, the annals of the world exhibit no parallel to the 
cruelty and perfidy by which England established her power 

in Ireland. 

Bishop England. 

No government, whether Christian, Mohamedan or Pagan, 
was ever sullied with more crime, or marked with more 
utter baseness, adroit diplomacy, low intrique, base selfish- 



"niall the grand.' 1 75 

ness, insatiate rapacity, open treachery, high-handed spolia- 
tion and robbery. Cold-blooded cruelty antt persecution, 
and downright butchery have ever marked the policy of 
of England toward Ireland. 

Archbishop Spaulding. 

Martial law for the people, gold for the senate, a bayonet 
for the patriot who loved Ireland, and a bribe for the traitor 
who did not. 

Archb'p Hughes. 

The King of England, finding himself unable to reduce 
Ireland by force of arms, had resource to every stratagem, 
even to religion, to conquer this kingdom. 

Westmonasteriensir says that he solicited, through a solemn 
embassy, the new Pope Adrian, (confident of obtaining it 
of him, as he was an Englishman) for leave to enter Ireland 
in a hostile manner, to subjucate it. It is alleged, that he 
represented to him, that religion was almost extinct in the 
country, that the morals of the people were corrupted, and 
that it was necessary to remedy it, for the glory of Chris- 
tianity. 

In his zeal he offered to become an apostle for that end, 
on condition that his holiness would grand him the sover- 
eignty of the island, and also promised to pay Peter's pence 
for every house. The Pope, who was born his subject, 
readily granted him (Henry) his request ; and the liberty of 
an entire nation was sacrificed to the ambition of one 
through the complaisance of the other. Like an able states- 
man, Henry wanted a favorable opportunity to carry his 
project into execution. This presented itself in a civil war 
that broke out between the monarch and the king of Lein- 
ster, of which he took advantage to begin his mission ; and 
although, according to the law of God, it is not by dispoiling 
our neighbor of his property that we should convert him, 
still the missionaries whom Henry II employed were men 
with arms in their hands, and more intent upon converting 



76 "niall the grand.' 1 

the land to their riwn use, to the predjudice of the old pro- 
prietors, than gaining souls to God. 

(McGoeghegan and Mitchell's History of Ireland, p. 257, 
Chap. XVI. 

AUTHORITIES ON THE BULLS. 

If it should be enquired in this place upon what account 
Diarmuid, king of Leinster, chose to commit himself and his 
affairs under the protection of the king of England, rather 
than to the king of France, it must be understood that 
Donough, the son of Byron Borroimhe, was a prince very 
unacceptable to the principle nobility of Ireland, who, rather 
than pay obedience, unanimously came to a revolution to 
make a present of the whole island to Urbanus II, pope of 
Rome, which was done in the year of our redemption, 
1092 : so that by this donation the popes laid claim to the 
sovereignty of Ireland, which they executed so far as to 
govern the nobility and clergy by wholesome laws, and to 
establish a regular discipline in the church. And the Popes 
maintained this authority til! Adrian, the fourth of that 
name, sat in St. Peter's chair, which was in the year of our 
Lord, 1154. This pope was an Englishman by descent, 
and his original name was Nicholas Brusber, or Breakspeire, 

Stone, the English annalist, asserts in his chronicle, that 
this pope bestowed the Kingdom of Ireland upon Henry II 
in the first year of his reign and Anno Domini, 1154. 

He also relates, that this donation was conferred upon the 
king, on condition that he would revive the profession of 
the Christian faith, which was dead throughout the Island ; 
that he should polish (?) the rude manners of the people, (?) 
defend and restore the rights and revenues of the church 
and clergy, and take especial care that every inhabited 
house in the kingdom should pay annually one penny to 
the Pope, under the name of St. Peter's penny. 

This grant of the Kingdom of Ireland to Henry, was drawn 
up in writing, which, when he received, he sent John, 



".MALL THE GRAND." 77 

bishop of Salisbury, with this instrument of the Pope's 
donation into Ireland. Upon his landing at Waterford, he 
sent to the bishops and the principle clergy of the island, 
and gave them an account of his commission. 

They attended upon him at Waterford, when he published 
the pope's grant of the Kingdom ot Ireland to Henry the II, 
King of England, with the conditions to be performed on 
bis part, and by all who succeeded in that crown. The 
clergy took the matter into consideration, and after some 
debate an instrument was drawn up, which contained their 
absolute submission to this donation of the Pope, and to 
this they all unanimously subscribed. 

The bishop returned with this confirmation of the Pope's 
grant by the clergy of Ireland, and the king of England 
sent the same prelate with the instrument to the Pope, who 
was well pleased with the submission of the Irish clergy, and 
sent a ring to king Henry as a confirmation of his former 
grant, by which he was established in the possession of the 
Irish Crown. 

Bellarnine, an eminent cardinal, agrees with this account. 
In a part of bis work are these words : "Adrian IV, Pope 
"of Rome, by birth an Englishman, a wise and pious man, 
"bath granted the island of Ireland to Henry II, king of 
'* England, upon condition that *he propagates virtues in 
" that island, and extirpates vice ; that he takes care that 
" one penny be paid yearly to St. Peter by every house, 
"and that he preserves the rights of the church inviolable: 
ki the diploma is extant in the 12th volume of Cardinal 
" Baronius." 

Stanehurst, in his chronicle, asserts the saint 1 thing, 
where he gives the account that Henry II, king of England, 
procured a bull from Adrian. Pope of Rome, which enjoined 
the clergy of Ireland, and likewise the nobility of the king- 
dom, to pay obedience to Henry II, upon the conditions 
and under the restrictions herein contained. The same 



78 "null the grand." 

author likewise relates, that Alexander III sent a cardinal 
(whose name was Vivian) into Ireland, to inform the sub- 
jects of that kingdom to the grant that he and the prece- 
dent Pope made that kingdom to Henry II, king of Eng- 
land, by the tenor of which that crown was confirmed to 
Henry and his successors in St. Peter's chair, a yearly 
tribute of a penny from every house throughout the Island. 

It appears therefore, that the reasons why Diarmuid, king 
of Leinster, applied to the king of England rather than any 
other prince, was because the king of England laid claim to 
the kingdom of Ireland, by virtue of the donation from the 
popes above mentioned; and therefore that king had power, 
by his snperior authority, to adjust the pretences of the 
princes of Ireland, and to engage in their disputes, and con- 
sequently to interpose in the quarrels of the king of Leinster. 
and settle him in the possession of that province." 

(Butler's History of Ireland, p. 301-305.) 

Adrian IV, the Pontiff, who authorized Henry of England 
to annex Ireland to his crown, died by swallowing a fly in 
a cup of water. 

(Walsh's Eccles. History of Ireland, p. 109.) 

Pope Adrian, the Fourth, in the second year of his Pon- 
tificate 1155, granted to Henry the Second, of Ireland, a 
bull, authorizing the invasion of Ireland. Tlie authenticity 
of that bull is now universally admitted. 

(T. D. McGee's History of Ireland, p. 136, Chap. 4, Book 
3, Vol.1.) 

The Irish princes did not act, unfortunately, (hat inde- 
pendent part which became men who lived in this crisis of 
their country's affairs. Divided among themselves, and 
submissive to the ordinances of the church, while we revere 
their feelings a Christians, we cannot but deplore their con- 
duct and tame submission as freemen. 

(Mooney's History of Ireland, p. 564.) 

NOTE. — T. Mooney's lectures, called Irish History, written in 1845, under the aus- 
pices of the clergy of New York, and others, he only casts doubt on the bulls, but 
confesses they were read at the synod of < laehel. I See page 561 . ) 



THE1 E^EiTTElFi© 



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"■Debiccitcfc to the eFcuiaus an& tftc SFtic.iS of flrcfanb. 



Semper et Ubique Fideles. "-Always and Everywhere Faithful. 



SIECO-TSTID EDITION-REVISED, 



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